May 21, 2025 • 46 mins
Robert, Mia, and James Discuss developments in conflicts in Kashmir, Yemen, and Kurdistan.
Sources:
https://anfenglishmobile.com/features/new-message-from-abdullah-Ocalan-79417
https://jacobin.com/2025/05/kashmir-india-pakistan-cease-fire-democracy
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cvgvr4r5d2qo
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/clyn617xv4no
https://www.cfr.org/global-conflict-tracker/conflict/conflict-between-india-and-pakistan
https://www.brookings.edu/articles/lessons-for-the-next-india-pakistan-war/
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/18/world/asia/india-pakistan-conflict.html
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
All the media.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
Welcome to the War Update and Update about War. I'm
your host Miya Wong with the is is James and Robert.
Speaker 1 (00:13):
War never changes, et cetera, et cetera.
Speaker 3 (00:16):
Yeah, except for Yeah, I mean all the time changes.
Speaker 2 (00:21):
Yeah, except for all the changes.
Speaker 4 (00:23):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (00:24):
I think it's a line from the film.
Speaker 4 (00:26):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (00:26):
I mean the most important part doesn't change, which is
most things in a proper place at right time, right,
That's that's that's what determines war winning. But the things
that matter are what change.
Speaker 1 (00:38):
Yeah. Yeah. Also what doesn't change? Not great fun for
the most part, and un enjoyable way to spend your time.
Speaker 3 (00:44):
Not enjoyable except for for the chunk of people who
tend to make most of the calls.
Speaker 1 (00:49):
Yeah. Yeah, enjoyable a lot. Yeah, enjoyable. You're an old
guy in a big house. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (00:55):
So we're gonna be talking about three wars. Yeah. I
think we're gonna We're gonna lead off with the India
Pakistan war, and then we're gonna do the other two
wars in some order you want to do you want
to announce the other two wars?
Speaker 1 (01:10):
Yeah, we're gonna talk about the end of the of
the armed conflict between the PKK and the Turkey State.
Maybe mm hmm.
Speaker 4 (01:18):
Yeah, we'll be talking about Yemen a little bit.
Speaker 2 (01:21):
Uh yeah, man, yeah, let's let's Oh god, let's do this. Okay.
So good news missed is that. Look, we do have
good news, which is that we have not all died
in the nuclear fires. I know there are some of
you for whom you were very disappointed, but we're all
still here for better or for worse, I mean for better,
Like I'm very glad we didn't all dine in nuclear fire. Yeah,
(01:42):
so let's let's let's talk about the recent war between
India and Pakistan. Lasted about four days, so all right. Well,
we talked about this a little bit before. The very
basic sort of elements of this conflict. We talked about
partition on the show before. When India sort of gain
in dependence from the British Empire, it split into Indian Pakistan.
(02:03):
Millions died, horrific sort of conflict, people killing each other,
like mass migrations across the borders. Very very very unstable
set of borders get set up that change a bunch
of times. And one of the aspects of this sort
of whole thing is that Kashmir was supposed to be
(02:26):
this independent state and then through an extremely convoluted process
that I am again once again pushing off to another
episode with like actual good experts on this, because this
is a very very convoluted thing. But the short version
of it basically is that this series is sort of
escalating conflicts end ends basically in a short war and
(02:49):
then kasher being split into between India and Pakistan, where
like about a third roughly of Kashmir ends up under
Pakistani control and then about two thirds ends up under Indian.
Now there's an agreement signed by sort of Kashmir's ruler
at the time to let India like annex like two
thirds of Kashmir or so the actual dividing line basically
(03:11):
ends up being like where the armies stopped. You know,
it changes over the years. But the important thing here,
right is that Kashmir is supposed to have had an
independence referendum, Right that was like, yeah, the deal now
in a move that is like Genny Winey even more
stunning than the ship that like Indonesia pulled in West
(03:34):
Papua so ins Papua, right, like Indonesia pulls a like
fake independence referendum here, they've never even done that, like
the never never pretended to have the referendum, and they're
supposed to have.
Speaker 1 (03:47):
It's like a sub assad level attempt at democracy, you know.
Speaker 2 (03:50):
Yeah, Yeah, they're just like nope, each ship like you're you're,
you're basically a colony now. Now as as part of
this deal, right, Kashmir got a pretty substantial amount of autonomy.
I'm gonna read there. There's actually there's a very good
Jacobin one of the rare good Jacobin articles, which usually
tend to be the ones written like not by the
(04:11):
American Jocobin writers.
Speaker 1 (04:12):
Yeah, I'm freelancer who made fifty US dollars for writing. Yeah,
and that's their rate to goun up.
Speaker 2 (04:19):
Yeah, this is written by Irish k And I'm gonna
quote here from this article. Quote central to the instrument
of a session. It's the document that the ruler of
Kashmir signed is sort of Likedhan Kashmir ver to India.
Quote what's the constitutional provision of Article three seventy which
assured the Kashmiri people autonomy over all matters besides those
(04:40):
pretending to defense, external affairs and communications. The article was
supposed to be temporary and provisional, because there was a
promise of a referendum by which the people of Kashmir
would decide their own political fate to remain part of India,
to join up with Pakistan, or become an independent state.
But as you've already mentioned, this has never happened. I mean,
they didn't even do it, sham one. It just literally
(05:01):
didn't ever happen. And India has just been imposing its
rule in Kashmir ever since. And I mean it's also
worth pointing out that Pakistan has also been imposing its
rule on like it's part of Kashmir. But the Indian
occupation has become increasingly brutal basically since it's starting, it's
just continued to get worse and worse, and it is
sort of a full blown military occupation, right There's just
(05:23):
like a bunch of fucking Indian troops in the street.
And as it becomes clear that India is like never
going to let Kashmir be free or just even let
the Kashmi people decide what they want, Milton struggles and sews.
And as Kate points out, it's originally spearheaded by the
secular Jamu Kashmir Liberation Front, and this group has just
sort of wiped out because it wanted an independent Kashmir.
(05:46):
And this was convenient to neither the Indian or the
Pakistani government because Pakistan and Pakistan talks about this a
lot internatually, Like one of their sort of international political
things is like, yeah, we want free Kashmir. But it's like, no,
you don't. You want Kashmir be part of Pakistan. That
is not the same thing as it being free, like
very clear about this, yeah and so and so Pakistan's
(06:08):
engagement towards Kashmir has always been about this, right, It's
always been about making sure that there wouldn't be any
kind of sort of independent Kashmir. And so both India
and Pakistan crush this sort of secular KASHMIRI independence group
that happen spearheading a lot of this, and over time
Pakistan is sort of through it, through a complicated series
(06:30):
of things, has sorted a lot of control over a
lot of these groups or has like intelligence relations with them.
Is SI kind of notoriously works with militant groups like
the I s. I is the group in Afghanistan that
like really full on did the thing that everyone thinks
that the US and the Saudi sort of did in
(06:53):
in terms of like funding the worst parts of the Mujahadeen,
like that was really mostly Pakistani intelligence. Yeah, so like
they have a lot of relations with the bunch of
people who absolutely fucking suck, and they've you know, sort
of used a lot of these a lot of these
groups as like a way to sort of poke a
stick in India and also you know, like attempt to
(07:13):
obtain their sort of like domestic political goals of like
weakening India for the real sort of internal stability, which
we'll come back to later, well, the interior's ability of
like military of the power of the military in Pakistan,
and also like taking the rest of Kashmir. Yeah, and
so this has caused a really horrific conflict in which
(07:33):
the people of Kashmir have suffered a bunch of horrible shit.
In twenty nineteen, that autonomy, you know again that the
autonomy that was the carrot in order to like join
in order to exchange for cashmer joining India right and
supposedly getting this referendum, like the like the carrot was
supposed to be that they're supposed to have an unbelievable
(07:54):
amount of internal autonomy. And in twenty nineteen it had
been being eroded for a long time, but in twenty
nine India is just like each hit fuck you, it's gone,
now have fun. And this causes a bunch of protests,
It causes Milton Group attacks, It causes a genuinely astonishing crackdown.
I mean, like they they turned off the phones in
(08:15):
the internet in Kashmir. The Indian government just like did
this and it became unbelievably difficult to get any information out.
They arrested unbelievable numbers of people. There are i mean
just absolutely horrifying accounts of the ship that Indian security
forces were doing to people. You know what I mean,
Like this is this is this is a colonial occupation, right.
(08:37):
The things that happen in the colonial occupation, they fucking
torture people, they kill people, they like they rape people.
It's it's really fucked And during this as as more
sort of like militant attacks rupt like in India, does
the first version of its well not the first version,
but it does. It does like it launches a series
(08:59):
of attacks on southern Pakistan and this is kind of
you know, there were escalations of it a couple of
years ago. But you know, the sort of big deal
this time was insurgents and it's we have a group
that claimed responsibility for it. It's still I don't know,
it's still unclear the extent to which packs INNY government
(09:20):
was actually involved. There's the whole thing with this. But
a bunch a bunch of sort of insurgents killed like
twenty five Hindu tourists in a Kashmari tourist town and
it's really fucking horrifying. This immediately causes this just unhinged
wave of Indio nationalism, like you do for a sort
(09:40):
of nationalism in India. We talked last time about all
of these Indian government officials like literally talking about quote
it Israel style final solution to Kashmir. So a bunch
of very very horrific shit is happening. Yeah, and then
India decides that it's it's going to start launching attacks
across the border. There's like the immediate small arms fire,
there's missile strikes, there's drone attacks, and then as this
(10:02):
sort of escalates, India launches attacks on three Pakistani air
bases and again like they hit an air base that
is in the city where Pakistan's Army General headquarters is,
which is a kind of provocation that has not happened
since like the last time these two countries were just
straight up at war. And you know, like that could
(10:25):
have killed us all. It didn't, but it absolutely could have,
and it was also just horrifying for it. And it's
worth pointing this out right. The people who are getting
killed on both sides of the border here, like Ar
Keshmiri's right, because like their home has been occupied by
these two powers. When when India and Pakistan go to war,
(10:47):
the people who die on both sides are Ar kashmiris right,
who are being killed by two states who decided, fuck you,
we get to control your fate. We get to be
the people who fucking occupy your land and then claim
to be the people who represent you. And you know,
the civilian toll of this is fucking horrifying. There's a
bunch of a bunch of civilians are killed. People spend
(11:09):
a huge amount of time cowering in these like horrifying
overcrowded bunkers. There's a good sort of BBC report on this,
Like there's so many people packed into bunkers that like
you can't even like walk. Everyone's just like pressed against
each other. And three days later you come out of
your bunker and your fucking house is gone. And those
are the people who survived, right. It's it's just horrifying,
(11:32):
And eventually there's a ceasefire. Everyone is now saying different
things about the ceasefire. The Indian government is trying to
downplay the US's role in the ceasefire. The Pakistani government
has been talking about how a whole bunch of places
were involved, including like Iran and Turkey to some extent,
or Turkey more than Iran. It seems like the US,
the UK, and Saudi Arabia all played a role in
(11:56):
sort of mediating it. That that we can sort of
confirm the US SEMs to have played the largest role,
which I guess I don't know. Like Marco Rubio was like,
we should probably not have a war between to nuclear powers,
which okay, I'm glad that, like he's finally found a thing,
a level that he won't stoop to, which is we
(12:17):
all die in nuclear war.
Speaker 1 (12:21):
I mean, like I would rather Maka Rubio was not
the Secretary of State, but like of the people who
could be under Trump administration. He's not as bad as
somebody other folks.
Speaker 2 (12:32):
Yeah, I mean it's like he we are fully in
Like which of Hitler's generals would you prefer to be
in charge of this territory? All these people.
Speaker 3 (12:43):
Yeah, we don't need it. We don't need a debate
raml right now. What we do need to do is
throw to ads the Irwin Rommel of the podcast industry.
Speaker 2 (13:02):
Okay, so there are a few things about this conflict
that are very, very bad. One is that India has
demonstrated the capacity to launch attacks against Pakistan that don't
involve them mobilizing their ground troops, which takes forever. It
is hard. That's really fucking bad. It's also bad that
again they fucking hit like the air base next to
Pakistan General Army General Headquarters, which means if they try
(13:25):
to do another attack, they're gonna have to hit a
bigger target and they apparently it seems like the Indian
government has sort of concluded that they can do this now.
It's also very bad that like most of the like
domestic Indian left supported this, including CPIM to the comediest
Party of India Marxist, which is like the sort of
social democratic technically maoist party that is supposed to be
like the left in India, like back the attacks, and
(13:47):
they've always had a fucking terrible line on Kashmir. So
it's also we're mentioning a little bit. There's been a
lot of reporting about India. You know, Modia isn't making
a bunch of noise about trying to just straight up
cut off Pakistan's access to water, which is very scary. Yeah,
it's worth noting. Kay talks about this in that Jocobin piece.
(14:09):
Case argument basically is that like they don't actually have
the infrastructure to do this, which is good because I
mean that would be a genocide. Like if they just
knocked out all back Then's access to water for agricultural
purposes and for drinking purposes, it'd be really bad. But
here's what I'm going to read this quote. Under the
Treaty regulations, India is required to share hydrological data that
is essential for planning to deal with floods and or
drought dream monsoon seasons. Denying Pakistan access to this data
(14:32):
would have a damaging impact. Moreover, because of the limited
storage capacity, India can change the timing of water flow,
which is crucial for many crops during sewing seasons. So
there is still a lot of damage they can do.
They can't straight up do like a genocide, but they
can do a lot of damage. And while both sides
have backed off of like direct military conflict, India still
(14:54):
is committed to every single thing they can do to
fuck with Pakistan, which affects just like the people Pakistan.
This has also been politically very good for Modi because
alternationalism has been bolstering the sort of like Pakistani military
government because there are alternationalists feed off of this, and
it's once again really fucking bad for the people of Kashmir,
who are the ones getting killed in on both sides
of the border. Yep, war is bad. Free Kashmir hate this.
Speaker 4 (15:18):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (15:19):
Well, speaking of war being bad, let's talk about what's
going on in Yemen. So if you remember from the
last quarter or so of the Biden administration, after Israel launched,
there were prizal attacks to October seventh on Gaza, the Huthis,
which is a depending on your stance, either the legitimate
(15:42):
government of Yemen or a rebel group in Yemen. You know,
the international community stance is a rebel group, the Houthis
Stance is different started launching a series of missile attacks,
both aimed at Israel and aimed at shipping in the
Gulf of Aden, right in order to disrupt because the
significant amount of the world's trade goes through there. And
this took a number of forms. They have ballistic missiles,
(16:04):
some of them are indigenous, by which I mean made
by the who the these oftentimes using stocks that were
captured from the military and government of Yemen previously. You
know that they supplanted in a lot of areas and
other times using missiles that were given to them by Iran. Yeah, right,
so it's a mix of tactics. They have also used
(16:25):
drones and they have also landed troops in order to
capture bulk freighters, including one called the Galaxy Leader and
I think twenty twenty three that was full of cars
and their claim was that it was a British vessel,
and obviously the Brits had been helping to arm and
support Israel. The vessel was actually registered in Lebanon. However,
(16:49):
whenever we get to discussions about like whose vessel is,
who's none of that. None of what is registered matters
vessels are registered all over the place for a variety
of nothing.
Speaker 4 (16:56):
It's always nonsense.
Speaker 3 (16:58):
That means nothing in Marshall Islands. Yeah, like nothing in
the entire world. Matters less to the reality of a
situation than where the vessel is registered. I'm not saying
that justifies er does it with the houthis that. I'm
just saying it does not matter where the vessel is registered. Yeah, yeah,
the ship was owned by a Lebanon based company. But
also given the nature of capitals, it doesn't all matter
(17:20):
all that much.
Speaker 4 (17:20):
Now.
Speaker 3 (17:21):
What also doesn't matter is that in January of this year,
the Hoothi's freed the captain of that ship and they
made an announcement that they would limit further attacks to
vessels flagged at as Israeli or owned by Israeli individuals
or entities. Right now, that also doesn't mean a lot, right,
because the nature of international trade means that there are
(17:43):
a lot of you know, you could basically argue, if
you're the houthis well this this is owned by a
multinational corporation who owns companies in Israel, or who has
heavy investments in companies in Israel. Therefore, right as a result,
you know, the Hoothi's continued doing the hoothy stuff and
saw them as kind of a convenient target, a convenient
(18:03):
place to flex's military muscles. And there were some people
within the United States defense establishment that considered that extremely convenient, too, right,
And this is largely due to the fact that Biden
prescribed a very limited campaign against the Huthies. Now this
does not mean inexpensive or insignificant. We kept at least
one aircraft carrier carrying out strikes in Yemen for like
(18:25):
a year or so, which is kind of the first
combat duty that an aircraft carrier has had in quite
some time that was really like active taking incoming fire,
not incoming fire that ever really threatened the carrier itself.
Speaker 4 (18:37):
But that's sort of beside the point.
Speaker 3 (18:39):
And there were people within the US military establishment who
were consistently frustrated with the Biden administration that they were
not letting them operate at a high enough tempo, right,
And kind of the number one guy advocating for this
side of events was General Michael E. Carilla, who is
the head of Central Command or syentcom right, and his
attitude had been wed a much more aggressive, high tempo
(19:01):
campaign he pitched the Trump administration when they came in.
I think it's like an eight to ten month long
campaign where initially they would degrade who their anti air asset.
So first we go in there and we use our
air power to establish air what's called air supremacy.
Speaker 4 (19:16):
Right.
Speaker 3 (19:16):
Air superiority means that you have better quality air support,
but also your shit can get knocked down. Air supremacy
means you have complete control of the skies.
Speaker 4 (19:27):
Right.
Speaker 3 (19:27):
The US military is fairly used to having air supremacy
if you look at, like, for example, our combat in
Iraq and Afghanistan when it came to like height, like
like fighter aircraft helicopters would get shot down from time
to time obviously and have accidents. We weren't losing F
eighteens in Afghanistan, right, like they weren't getting knocked out
(19:48):
of the fucking sky by the Taliban. We had air
supremacy in Ukraine. Depending on what part of the battlespace
you're talking about, either things have been more or less
at a standstill, or Russia has had air superior but
not supremacy, right, because Ukraine has very solid modern anti
aircraft defenses, and it has been able to exact a toll.
We will talk to a greater extent about what's been
(20:10):
happening with India and Pakistan. It is exceedingly unclear at
the moment who got the better of the engagement. Did
any of those Chinese anti aircraft missiles actually knock out aircraft?
Did any India lose any aircraft? Did Pakistan down an aircraft?
We actually like everyone's making different claims right now, and
I don't have objective evidence right other than that we
(20:31):
can we know that things that there's at least evidence of,
at least one case what looks like refkage of a
rough fall, and in at least one case there's what
looks like a knocked down Chinese anti aircraft missile. I'm
spacing on the exact name right now, but again that
doesn't mean anything about how they actually affair in the battlespace,
right So anyway, Yeah, this motherfucker he had a syncom.
Michael Lee Carilla was like, I've got this plan. We
(20:54):
need a much more force. We're going to knock out
their anti air defenses and then we're going to basically
carry out a modif version of what Israel carried out
against Hamas and has Belah, Right, where we start targeting
and killing the leadership cadro once we've knocked out their defenses.
And he estimated that would take about a little under
a year, right, but the better part of a year.
And the Trump administration said, you can have your higher
(21:15):
tempo war, but you've got to.
Speaker 4 (21:18):
Show results in about a month.
Speaker 3 (21:20):
Right, In about a month, the US military carried out
about eleven hundred strikes. They killed, they say, hundreds of
hooty fighters, destroyed quite a bit of weapons and equipment.
Very unclear how many fighters they killed, certainly hundreds of people.
Were those all hoothy fighters? How many weapons and equipment
were destroyed? I don't have access to that sort of data,
and I'm not entirely confident that anyone in the US
(21:42):
military has a much better idea certainly a little bit
more data. But also they get that shit wrong all
the fucking time.
Speaker 2 (21:49):
Yeah. It's also like it's worth noting right when they're
talking about like casualty numbers, the Huthis are not a
small rebel group like now they control the capital of Yemen, right,
Like this is like the government, right, Yeah, they have.
Speaker 3 (22:04):
Not a peer state in terms of the US and
that they do not have the manufacturing base and capacity,
but they are equivalent to a small state actor, right yeah, yeah, and.
Speaker 2 (22:15):
So and so what you're bombing them, right like you're
you're just you're blowing smoking creators and apartment buildings.
Speaker 3 (22:22):
And the Hoothies are so experienced with getting bombed. They've
been bombed by a lot of people before. None of
this is new to them, right, yeah. So in the
first thirty days, while they you know, the US has
made a lot, has made a lot of claims about
how many people they killed and the level of degradation
of Hoothy capacity, the Houthis have done some damage to
(22:43):
US capacity. They have shot down seven at this point
at least seven m Q nine Reaper drones, which are
thirty million dollars each. And in addition, now four f
eighteen jets have been lost not probably not yeah, probably
just to fuck ups that are a result of the
tenth of activity.
Speaker 4 (23:00):
Right.
Speaker 3 (23:01):
These all tend to be craft that are landing and
don't get caught by the catapult system that they've got
on these aircraft carriers or otherwise wind up in the
Red Sea. Right, there is some suspicion and debate is
to like, is there any sort of like internal treason
going on here? Is somebody on the aircraft carrier making
(23:23):
these fuck ups happen. This is being investigated, I believe,
although there's no confirmation about like what exactly has gone down.
It's weird to lose this many FA eighteen super hornets
and a very short period of time.
Speaker 2 (23:36):
Yeah, I will say my understanding of it, also, is
it the everything that's going on here is that this
aircraft carrier has been out past the point it should
have been refitted. Yes, like so extraordinarily.
Speaker 3 (23:46):
And it's also not weird that people fuck up when
they are carrying on operations at a tempo they never
have before. Right, And there's a very good chance that
it's nothing more than that the more you fly, the
more accidents are going to happen.
Speaker 4 (23:58):
Right, Yeah.
Speaker 2 (23:58):
Period. Also say, I want to say, imagine you were
like the deck office.
Speaker 3 (24:03):
Oh man, that poor motherfucker, that motherfucker's getting fucked, Like yeah,
I think the first one goes over, right, and then
the second one, uh huh goes yeah, And now it's
happening right now, you've probably been you're out of the
push job, and that first guy is kind of lucky
because when the next two fall off, at least maybe that's.
Speaker 4 (24:23):
Less pressure on you.
Speaker 2 (24:24):
Yeah, Like imagine like you're the deck officer of the fourth.
Speaker 3 (24:29):
Yeah, yeah, Jesus right, God, that's gotta suck. So in
about thirty days, the US military had burned more than
a billion dollars on this operation, right at which point
Trump and people around him were like, oh fuck, we
(24:49):
can't keep this ship up. We can't maintain this tempo
of operations. There were warnings given for within the Defense
Department that we have used so many of our most
advanced munitions that if China makes a move on Taiwan,
we're not sure we have the reserves necessary right these munitions.
When we talk a lot about the capacity of US firepower,
people talk about shit like in twenty eighteen, how we
(25:10):
like a There was this Alqaeda guy who had been
responsible for the attack on the US coal twenty something.
Speaker 4 (25:18):
Years ago, Yeah, a long gas time ago, who used.
Speaker 3 (25:21):
A cell phone he shouldn't have used briefly and then
turned it off, and we were able to get visual
confirmation of where he was from the cell phone signal
and knock his ass out with a drone right, and
we do have incredible capacity potentially to make unbelievably precise strikes. However,
that capacity is reliant both upon a functional network of
(25:44):
human intelligence, a functional network of operators of aircraft and
drones who are not completely burnt out by the tempo
of operations, and access to incredibly advanced munitions, which we
do not have an inexhaustible capacity and are reliant upon
an international supply chain to continue to manufacture right, and
(26:04):
all of that has been endangered by the tempo of
this campaign. And ultimately there's a great New York Times
report on this that's just absolutely damning to the military
that came out as called why Trump suddenly declared victory
over the Hoothy militia, that declared that after all of this,
the best we can say is perhaps a modest degradation
(26:24):
of Hoothy capacities that they can easily recover from given
enough time, which they're going to get. Because Trump both
declared victory and stated that the Hoothies had yet again
agreed to stop striking shipping in the Red Sea, and
he was like, this is a win. We made a
deal with him, big deal maker. Donald Trump made a deal. Now,
if you look at the Houthi said, all they said
is we're going to stop striking Israeli shipping, which, if
(26:46):
you'll recall, is what they had said in January.
Speaker 4 (26:51):
So did we win?
Speaker 1 (26:55):
Now?
Speaker 3 (26:56):
Did the Hoothies win? Not yet, but they're you know,
they didn't lose. And again, if you understand your insurgent warfare,
you win by just not losing for long enough.
Speaker 4 (27:07):
Right.
Speaker 2 (27:07):
Yeah, Well, and it's also worth it's worth mentioning too
when you're talking about the global supply chain part of this. Right,
on the one hand, like the US has done an
extraordinary amount to try to make sure that as much
as the supply chain as they can is in the US.
On the other hand, it still requires a bunch of
chef mother places, including a bunch of rare earth metals
that the US gets from China. Now you may be
noting we are currently fighting a trade war with China.
(27:29):
A bunch of the our like strategic planning is about
stopping a Chinese invasion of Taiwan. So and we've just
expended a shit ton of our stack pilot yeahs, that
we can only replace by using shit we get from China.
So absolute just gedious brain shit that that that's happening
here right now at the highest levels of the highest
(27:50):
levels of the regime.
Speaker 1 (27:52):
Meanma has a lot of rare earth metals, but we
have China is currently lot closer to securing those than
the United States is. Yeah, it's not great.
Speaker 3 (28:01):
Well that's all I got. That's the hoodies. Let's have
another ad break real quick here.
Speaker 1 (28:06):
Yeah, let's do that.
Speaker 4 (28:06):
Let's do that.
Speaker 1 (28:07):
Let's have an ad break. Lovely, what a nice advertising
break we are. Now that I know many of you
have been asking me about what is happening in Kurdistan,
(28:28):
so I'm going to try my best to very briefly
explain that in the last segment of this show. So,
the PKK right, the PKK being the branch of the
Kurdish Freedom Movement that has operated in Turkey as Turkey
or Northern Kurdistan, and mostly since the mid twenty teens
(28:50):
has been based in a Rack or Southern Kurdistan. Right,
it convened its twelfth Congress in the second week of
May and it decided to disband it self, lay down
its arms, and I think the phrasing it used was
to cease armed activities under the PKK name, which is
a way of saying things more broadly, It did genuinely
(29:16):
seem to indicate a commitment to like this sort of
ballot not the bullet approach. And I'm going to quote
kind of extensively here from the statement that the PKK released,
and then from other statements from people Genmilbick, the leader,
one of the co chairs of the KCK. The KK,
if you're not familiar, it's a Curdistan Communities Union that
(29:39):
is a group that allows the different areas of the
Kurdish Freedom Movement, all of which are inspired by the
political thought of abd Aujilan, to sort of come together
and discuss their paradigm, their goals, their methodologies. I guess,
so I want to read from the PKK statement to
(30:01):
begin with quote the process initiated by Leader Abdullah or
Janan statement of February twenty seventh, and further shaped by
his extensive work and multi dimensional perspectives, culminated in the
successful convening of our twelfth Party Congress between May fifth
and May the seventh, despite ongoing clashes, aerial and ground attacks,
continued siege of our regions, and the KDP embargo our
(30:24):
Congress was held securely under challenging conditions due to security concerns.
It was conducted simultaneously in two different locations, with a
participation of two hundred and thirty two delegates in total.
The PKK twelfth Congress discussed leadership, martyrs, veterans, the organizational
structure of the PKK and armed struggle and democratic society building,
culminating in the historic decisions marking the beginning of a
(30:47):
new era for a freedom movement. It's a very long statement,
as tends to be the style of statements from the
Curdish freedom movement. It talks a lot about Abdullah Jelen,
as tends to be the style of statement from the
Kurdish freedom movement. I've I have linked to itinly shown
as if you'd like to read all of it, and
you know, I'd encourage you too, you're interested in this
sort of thing. They talk a lot about the democratic
(31:09):
nation concept and the idea that occurs in Turks of
coxisted in Turkey for a long time. I thought this
part was of interest, and going to quote again here
the decision of our Congress to dissolve the PKK and
end the method of armed struggle offers a strong basis
for a lasting piece and a democratic solution. Implementing these
decisions requires that leader Appo Appo, it's the evocative form
(31:32):
of the Kurdish word for paternal uncle, but in this
in this instance, it is referring to abdulah Jaalan, right,
that's his nickname. Leader Appo, lead and guide the process
that has right to democratic politics be recognized and that solid,
comprehensive legal guarantees be established. At this stage, it is
essential that the Grand National Assembly of Turkey plays its
(31:53):
role with historical responsibility. So a couple of things that
are of note there. One is that the talking about
this transition towards democracy or a brotherhood of nations, the
talk about somewhere else right, brotherhood of people's it's occurring
under the leadership and direction of Abdulla Jelan. If you
are not familiar with Abdullah Ouscherlan, you can listen to
(32:14):
Robert's theories. So the women's wards are the great job
of explaining a lot of the stuff that we won't
have time to get into today. Very briefly, Appo has
been in Imrali and various other Turkish prisons since nineteen
ninety nine. For long periods of that time, no one
was able to see him. He was held completely in communicado.
(32:34):
At times there were hundreds of troops guiding only him
on this Turkish prison island. That is no longer a case. Right.
He made this statement on the twenty seventh of February,
and since then the Kurdish Freedom Movement has had access
to Ouscherlan. Right. He actually made another statement on the
eighteenth of May where he said, I quote, a new
(32:57):
contract is needed based on the law of brotherhood. What
we are doing represents a major paradigm shift. The nature
of the Turkish Kurdish relationship is fundamentally different what has
been broken in the bond of brotherhood. It seems like
through the DEM Party right, which is a left leaning
party in Turkey, which has supported the Kurdish cause and
for a long time has served as the interlocutor between
(33:21):
Turkey and the Kurdish Freedom movement. Through the DEM Party,
they have access to Ouserland and they're able relatively frequently.
It seems like these DEM Party officials to go to
him rally and talk to him, and so they're talking
about his leadership continuing through this democratic Transition right for
(33:43):
the Curdish Freedom Movement. Jimil Bikes Jimil Bick again is
the co chair of the casey K and institutions. Within
the Kurdish Freedom Movement. There's a co chair system, right,
which means so that a man and a woman share
the chairmanship of an institution, such that patriarchal structures aren't
replicated in the movement. That's the goal of the co
(34:05):
chair system. He has a two part interview in A
and F which I've linked again in the notes. He
talked about how like the first role of the PKK,
of the movement, even before it was called the PKK,
was to quote unquote reveal the Kurdish quote unquote Kurdish question. Right,
That's how they refer to it. Other times I'll talk
about her Kurdish people were on their knees and like
(34:27):
under the leadership of Augiland they stood up. They talk
about also how Mount Ararat, Turkey has a plaque apparently
where it says like here is buried the imaginary Kurdish nation,
and like the Kurdish nation is certainly not buried anymore, right,
Like it it's very active. Kurds are very politically empowered
in two of the four countries where Kurds live, right,
Like in Turkey they are to a lesser extent, but
(34:49):
they're still present, right, No one could deny their presence.
In Iran, it's still, I guess more difficult the time
for the Kurdish freedom movement, Biack said. Within our initial paradigm,
our first manifesto, the Kurdish identity, the Kurdish people and
Kurdish society were formed. A society in love with freedom
was formed. People emerged that would fight for freedom under
(35:10):
any circumstances. On this basis, we are now developing a
new paradigm, a second manifesto. This paradigm, this manifesto aimed
to resolve not only the Kurdish question, but also the
issues of the peoples of the Middle East and humanity
as a whole. Rabert Apple, Rayber Smith's leader, Raybert Apple
is no longer leading only the Kurdish people. He's leading
all peoples of humanity. Yeah it's yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,
(35:42):
it's yeah. This is the sort of rehtoric we can
expect from the get the k c K right, Like
they're very dedicated to Julan as a leader. Yes, yes,
and you know, Robert and I have both been trus Java.
Speaker 3 (35:55):
I've heard a lot of no life without our leader's
speeches and seeing a lot of a lot of those
pert as well.
Speaker 1 (36:00):
Yeah yeah, yeah, Like you can't really go into a
space you'll see other Like it's not just Ocherlan, right,
You're going to see a wind I can, and you're
going to see it's not like just a guy with
a mustache. You're going to see women idolized in the
movement too. But auscher Land to the greatest extent is
like their dear leader figure. You can see his face
all over Rashava and they're very dedicated to Ouscherlen's leadership.
(36:24):
And like this change in structure does not change that,
or this change it approach has not changed that. In fact,
it underlines that, right, Like from the letter that Ouserlean
wrote and he wrote letters to different parts of the
Kurdish Freedom movement came this change, right, So it's still
at the instruction of Ochelin, albeit with the consent of
(36:47):
these delegates who went to this PKK congress right and voted.
I've reached out to the k c K to ask
for comment on like exactly what this means in terms
of like to the casey k as I said, are
in the mountains of southern Kurdistan now, and they have
fought Turkey there for years. Right, We've covered that on
(37:07):
this podcast. Northern Iraq, Southern Kerdistan, however you wish to
call it like Turkey has been bombing They were bombing
it last time I was there. I'm sure they were
bombing it last time Robert was there. They've been bombing
it ever since. And the villages that have really suffered
as a result. Right, people have lost their children, they've
lost their lands, they've often had their crops burned right
(37:30):
by these bombs. So I'm interested to know that will
the idea of the Kurdish Freedom Movement leaving the mountains
there is I mean, it would be a hell of
a site they've been in. They've been in those mountains
for a long time. But I don't know what this
means for the Kurdish Freedom Movement in southern Kurdistan. But
(37:51):
I've asked. I don't know if this means that they
will attempt like a straight up electoral strategy, right, or
when Ogerland's asking for a new contract, right, like a
new social contract that's how in Raja. But they literally
have a social contract, right. The social contract is generally
like a theoretical construct in most like neoliberal democracies, the
(38:12):
idea that you and the state enter into an agreement
whereby you give up some freedom and you lose some
danger and the state give you some safety and it
takes some of your freedom. In Raja, but the social
contract is a real thing, right, Like, it's a thing
that is formed in consultation with society. So when when
we see APPO asking a bandon new contract, does that
(38:34):
mean that they will engage like on the basis of
a new Turkish constitution. I don't know. I don't think
any of us have answers to these questions, and I
imagine that they don't either. Write like they have decided
to pursue this strategy of peace. They've decided that through
their armed conflict, they were able to prove that they exist.
And that's a phrase that specifically people have said to
(38:56):
me in the Kurdish Freedom movement, like we had to
pick up arms to pre that we exist, and now
that there's no denying their existence, they can use different methods, right,
Like they're put down their weapons and talk and established
with Turkey how to coexist, having established that they exist
through the armed struggle. So for them, this is like
(39:16):
they're celebrating it, right. They'll draw the analogy very often
to like Shinfein in Ireland, that's one that you're here
pretty often, and that this is their Good Friday. Now.
In the Good Friday Agreement, Britainer released people from prison.
Number of very highly cherished, very highly respected members of
the Curdish Freedom movement are still in prison. Of course,
(39:38):
Oderlan being the most sort of widely loved and respected
member of the Kurdish Freedom movement. I don't think we're
seeing Osderlan come out of prison. I don't think there's
a world in which Turkey would let that happen. But
maybe we will see some other people released. Maybe we
will see those people. I don't enter into electoral politics.
Some of them have been in the struggle for fifty
(40:01):
plus years, right, like fifty years living in the mountains
and constantly being worried about being bombed. So it'll be
fascinating to see how this this has been a long
and bloody conflict. It has been going for longer than
any of us have been alive. If the friends are happy,
then I'm happy for them, right, And if peace is
what they want and they can get away to continue,
(40:24):
like General Bick says, like the people in love with freedom,
Like if they can keep their freedom and they can
do it without war, then I'm happy for them, because,
like I've talked to a lot of Kurdish parents who
have buried their children.
Speaker 3 (40:36):
God Almighty been to too many of the graveyards and
northern Syria.
Speaker 1 (40:40):
Yeah, yeah, there's little white graveyards with little children's faces.
Like that will stay with me forever whatever stops that,
you know, Yeah, Like if one of the things that
kind of struck me when I was in Rajaba last
time is that like death just falls from the night
sky sometimes, yeah, and maybe maybe it's your baby, maybe
it's you, maybe into your grandma, And it's a pretty
(41:03):
horrible way to live. And going through that for your
freedom is something very brave. And they have endured some
of the worst conflict on the planet in the last
few decades, right, They've fought some of the worst fucking
people on the planet on one and if there is
a way that the people of kurdisf Stan can enjoy peace,
I want that for them because they've been at war
(41:25):
for a very long time. Yep, hi, everyone, it's James,
and which is adding this pick up to the episode.
I was able to get some questions answered on behalf
of the Kurdish Friedim movement, and I would just like
to share those answers with you. So I asked if
Aojulan was able to address the Congress. I'd previously been
told he was. This is a response. Throughout the more
(41:46):
than twenty six years that Kurdish People's Leader Abdula Ogelan
has been held hostage in the prison island of him Rally,
he has always found waves to convey his messages and
perspectives to the Congress of the PKK that has taken place.
So it was again regarding the twelfth Conggress of the PKK,
which convened from May the fifth to May the seventh
in the Free Mountains of Kurdistan. He was able to
forward his ideas and analysis via the various delegations that
(42:08):
have visited him throughout the last few months. I asked
about Ojulan's call for a new social contract and they
told me Curtish People's Leader ab Dela Ojuln's calls and
the historic initiatives that he has taken do not imply
that the Turkish State has adopted the same attitude or
that the state has changed its approach. Kurdish People's leader
abd Lor Aujulin is not simply hoping for a change
of mentality in the state, but it's moving forward developing
(42:31):
his project and thereby pulling the state along with him.
What he is currently primarily concerned with is a redefining
and reconstruction of the historical alliance of the Kurdish and
Turkish people, which has been derailed during the past century.
A long term democratic solution to the Kurdish question necessitates
a recognition of the role of the Kurds in the
establishment of development of the republic. Relations between the peoples
(42:51):
must be brought back to the historical routes, so division
cannot be realized Unilatterally, it lays in the nature of
the way the struggle at the Kurdish People's lead ab
de l Or and the PKK that when they want
to achieve a solution to a specific issue, they initially
create through struggle the necessary conditions and contexts for it.
What Abdul ojuland does is to set the context and
to encourage all related circles in Turkey to take upon
(43:14):
their responsibility for our lasting peace. And then I wanted
to ask about the people who were incarcerated and like
the steps that they needed from the Turkish state in
order for this peace process to continue.
Speaker 4 (43:25):
And this is what they said.
Speaker 1 (43:26):
A historic initiative was taken by Curdish People's Leader Abdula
Aujilan and the PKK. First of all, there was the
publication of the quote call for peace and democratic society
and quote on February twenty sevenths. Then there was a
declaration of the unilateral ceasefire on March first, and now
there was the twelve PKK Congress May fifth to seventh
was a decision to dissolve the PKK. All of those
(43:49):
steps were unilateral steps that were not the result of
negotiations with the state. So far, no official negotiation to
take a place and oritenal verbal agreements have been reached.
The steps taken were only a sign of goodwill and
expression of seriousness about peace. Now it is upon the
Turkish state to answer to this initiative and take the
first practical legal steps. So far, all we have seen
(44:10):
is empty rhetoric. For the process to actually unfold, Kurdish
People's leader Abdullah Oujelan must first of all, regain his
physical freedom and the conditions for him to work freely,
healthily and securely must be guaranteed so that he can
fulfill his role as a chief negotiator of the Kurdish people. Also,
the constitutional reforms that grant the basic rights for the
Kurds and recognize them as one of the primary constituents
(44:32):
that a republic must take place.
Speaker 3 (44:33):
Now.
Speaker 1 (44:34):
These are the first necessary steps. From there a peace
process can unfold.
Speaker 4 (44:40):
If you're wondering about Rajava.
Speaker 1 (44:41):
Just to finish up, Muslumabdi made a statement Aslumbdi, leader
of the Syrian Democratic Forces Right, sometimes called General muslium
Hova Muslum depends who, depends what side of things you're on,
I guess. Muslum Abdi made a statement congratulating the PKKA,
saying he hoped to all parties supported the peace process.
The sea it is still in clashes with remnants of
(45:03):
the so called Islamic State and increasingly with Sunnis within
the Syrian Revolution who are growing disheartened with what they
see as al Shara's moderate turn right, the Damascus government
being to live for some of these sunny groups, and
so isis the Islamic State whatever you want to call it.
(45:26):
Dash is using that as a chance to recruit people,
and that is why we are seeing ongoing fighting. I
literally I saw that they were They were burying one
of their SDF fighters in Kamish Flow today. So unfortunately
for the people of Fra Java, the killing and dying continues, which, yes,
(45:46):
it's sad, yes, yeah, I want peace for my friends
there and in Burma. Like yeah, despite the fact that
Robert and I get paid to go to wars sometimes,
it doesn't mean we don't want a friends to live
in peace.
Speaker 4 (45:56):
Yeah. I would like there to not be any more
to go to.
Speaker 1 (45:59):
Yeah, that would be great.
Speaker 4 (46:00):
I'll find something else to do.
Speaker 1 (46:01):
Yeah, fuck it, I'll go run with the bulls again.
Speaker 4 (46:03):
I went White Rottter rafting yesterday. It was nice. I
could just do more of that.
Speaker 1 (46:07):
Yeah, yeah, no, I'll will climb.
Speaker 3 (46:08):
Yeah, you know, all right, everybody, We're done for the day.
Go hopefully not live in a war zone. But if
you do, hopefully that stops so peace.
Speaker 2 (46:20):
It could happen Here is a production of cool Zone Media.
Speaker 4 (46:23):
For more podcasts from cool Zone Media, visit our website
Coolzonemedia dot com, or check us out on the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts.
Speaker 2 (46:33):
You can now find sources for it could happen here
listed directly in episode descriptions.
Speaker 1 (46:37):
Thanks for listening.
All the media.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
Welcome to the War Update and Update about War. I'm
your host Miya Wong with the is is James and Robert.
Speaker 1 (00:13):
War never changes, et cetera, et cetera.
Speaker 3 (00:16):
Yeah, except for Yeah, I mean all the time changes.
Speaker 2 (00:21):
Yeah, except for all the changes.
Speaker 4 (00:23):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (00:24):
I think it's a line from the film.
Speaker 4 (00:26):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (00:26):
I mean the most important part doesn't change, which is
most things in a proper place at right time, right,
That's that's that's what determines war winning. But the things
that matter are what change.
Speaker 1 (00:38):
Yeah. Yeah. Also what doesn't change? Not great fun for
the most part, and un enjoyable way to spend your time.
Speaker 3 (00:44):
Not enjoyable except for for the chunk of people who
tend to make most of the calls.
Speaker 1 (00:49):
Yeah. Yeah, enjoyable a lot. Yeah, enjoyable. You're an old
guy in a big house. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (00:55):
So we're gonna be talking about three wars. Yeah. I
think we're gonna We're gonna lead off with the India
Pakistan war, and then we're gonna do the other two
wars in some order you want to do you want
to announce the other two wars?
Speaker 1 (01:10):
Yeah, we're gonna talk about the end of the of
the armed conflict between the PKK and the Turkey State.
Maybe mm hmm.
Speaker 4 (01:18):
Yeah, we'll be talking about Yemen a little bit.
Speaker 2 (01:21):
Uh yeah, man, yeah, let's let's Oh god, let's do this. Okay.
So good news missed is that. Look, we do have
good news, which is that we have not all died
in the nuclear fires. I know there are some of
you for whom you were very disappointed, but we're all
still here for better or for worse, I mean for better,
Like I'm very glad we didn't all dine in nuclear fire. Yeah,
(01:42):
so let's let's let's talk about the recent war between
India and Pakistan. Lasted about four days, so all right. Well,
we talked about this a little bit before. The very
basic sort of elements of this conflict. We talked about
partition on the show before. When India sort of gain
in dependence from the British Empire, it split into Indian Pakistan.
(02:03):
Millions died, horrific sort of conflict, people killing each other,
like mass migrations across the borders. Very very very unstable
set of borders get set up that change a bunch
of times. And one of the aspects of this sort
of whole thing is that Kashmir was supposed to be
(02:26):
this independent state and then through an extremely convoluted process
that I am again once again pushing off to another
episode with like actual good experts on this, because this
is a very very convoluted thing. But the short version
of it basically is that this series is sort of
escalating conflicts end ends basically in a short war and
(02:49):
then kasher being split into between India and Pakistan, where
like about a third roughly of Kashmir ends up under
Pakistani control and then about two thirds ends up under Indian.
Now there's an agreement signed by sort of Kashmir's ruler
at the time to let India like annex like two
thirds of Kashmir or so the actual dividing line basically
(03:11):
ends up being like where the armies stopped. You know,
it changes over the years. But the important thing here,
right is that Kashmir is supposed to have had an
independence referendum, Right that was like, yeah, the deal now
in a move that is like Genny Winey even more
stunning than the ship that like Indonesia pulled in West
(03:34):
Papua so ins Papua, right, like Indonesia pulls a like
fake independence referendum here, they've never even done that, like
the never never pretended to have the referendum, and they're
supposed to have.
Speaker 1 (03:47):
It's like a sub assad level attempt at democracy, you know.
Speaker 2 (03:50):
Yeah, Yeah, they're just like nope, each ship like you're you're,
you're basically a colony now. Now as as part of
this deal, right, Kashmir got a pretty substantial amount of autonomy.
I'm gonna read there. There's actually there's a very good
Jacobin one of the rare good Jacobin articles, which usually
tend to be the ones written like not by the
(04:11):
American Jocobin writers.
Speaker 1 (04:12):
Yeah, I'm freelancer who made fifty US dollars for writing. Yeah,
and that's their rate to goun up.
Speaker 2 (04:19):
Yeah, this is written by Irish k And I'm gonna
quote here from this article. Quote central to the instrument
of a session. It's the document that the ruler of
Kashmir signed is sort of Likedhan Kashmir ver to India.
Quote what's the constitutional provision of Article three seventy which
assured the Kashmiri people autonomy over all matters besides those
(04:40):
pretending to defense, external affairs and communications. The article was
supposed to be temporary and provisional, because there was a
promise of a referendum by which the people of Kashmir
would decide their own political fate to remain part of India,
to join up with Pakistan, or become an independent state.
But as you've already mentioned, this has never happened. I mean,
they didn't even do it, sham one. It just literally
(05:01):
didn't ever happen. And India has just been imposing its
rule in Kashmir ever since. And I mean it's also
worth pointing out that Pakistan has also been imposing its
rule on like it's part of Kashmir. But the Indian
occupation has become increasingly brutal basically since it's starting, it's
just continued to get worse and worse, and it is
sort of a full blown military occupation, right There's just
(05:23):
like a bunch of fucking Indian troops in the street.
And as it becomes clear that India is like never
going to let Kashmir be free or just even let
the Kashmi people decide what they want, Milton struggles and sews.
And as Kate points out, it's originally spearheaded by the
secular Jamu Kashmir Liberation Front, and this group has just
sort of wiped out because it wanted an independent Kashmir.
(05:46):
And this was convenient to neither the Indian or the
Pakistani government because Pakistan and Pakistan talks about this a
lot internatually, Like one of their sort of international political
things is like, yeah, we want free Kashmir. But it's like, no,
you don't. You want Kashmir be part of Pakistan. That
is not the same thing as it being free, like
very clear about this, yeah and so and so Pakistan's
(06:08):
engagement towards Kashmir has always been about this, right, It's
always been about making sure that there wouldn't be any
kind of sort of independent Kashmir. And so both India
and Pakistan crush this sort of secular KASHMIRI independence group
that happen spearheading a lot of this, and over time
Pakistan is sort of through it, through a complicated series
(06:30):
of things, has sorted a lot of control over a
lot of these groups or has like intelligence relations with them.
Is SI kind of notoriously works with militant groups like
the I s. I is the group in Afghanistan that
like really full on did the thing that everyone thinks
that the US and the Saudi sort of did in
(06:53):
in terms of like funding the worst parts of the Mujahadeen,
like that was really mostly Pakistani intelligence. Yeah, so like
they have a lot of relations with the bunch of
people who absolutely fucking suck, and they've you know, sort
of used a lot of these a lot of these
groups as like a way to sort of poke a
stick in India and also you know, like attempt to
(07:13):
obtain their sort of like domestic political goals of like
weakening India for the real sort of internal stability, which
we'll come back to later, well, the interior's ability of
like military of the power of the military in Pakistan,
and also like taking the rest of Kashmir. Yeah, and
so this has caused a really horrific conflict in which
(07:33):
the people of Kashmir have suffered a bunch of horrible shit.
In twenty nineteen, that autonomy, you know again that the
autonomy that was the carrot in order to like join
in order to exchange for cashmer joining India right and
supposedly getting this referendum, like the like the carrot was
supposed to be that they're supposed to have an unbelievable
(07:54):
amount of internal autonomy. And in twenty nineteen it had
been being eroded for a long time, but in twenty
nine India is just like each hit fuck you, it's gone,
now have fun. And this causes a bunch of protests,
It causes Milton Group attacks, It causes a genuinely astonishing crackdown.
I mean, like they they turned off the phones in
(08:15):
the internet in Kashmir. The Indian government just like did
this and it became unbelievably difficult to get any information out.
They arrested unbelievable numbers of people. There are i mean
just absolutely horrifying accounts of the ship that Indian security
forces were doing to people. You know what I mean,
Like this is this is this is a colonial occupation, right.
(08:37):
The things that happen in the colonial occupation, they fucking
torture people, they kill people, they like they rape people.
It's it's really fucked And during this as as more
sort of like militant attacks rupt like in India, does
the first version of its well not the first version,
but it does. It does like it launches a series
(08:59):
of attacks on southern Pakistan and this is kind of
you know, there were escalations of it a couple of
years ago. But you know, the sort of big deal
this time was insurgents and it's we have a group
that claimed responsibility for it. It's still I don't know,
it's still unclear the extent to which packs INNY government
(09:20):
was actually involved. There's the whole thing with this. But
a bunch a bunch of sort of insurgents killed like
twenty five Hindu tourists in a Kashmari tourist town and
it's really fucking horrifying. This immediately causes this just unhinged
wave of Indio nationalism, like you do for a sort
(09:40):
of nationalism in India. We talked last time about all
of these Indian government officials like literally talking about quote
it Israel style final solution to Kashmir. So a bunch
of very very horrific shit is happening. Yeah, and then
India decides that it's it's going to start launching attacks
across the border. There's like the immediate small arms fire,
there's missile strikes, there's drone attacks, and then as this
(10:02):
sort of escalates, India launches attacks on three Pakistani air
bases and again like they hit an air base that
is in the city where Pakistan's Army General headquarters is,
which is a kind of provocation that has not happened
since like the last time these two countries were just
straight up at war. And you know, like that could
(10:25):
have killed us all. It didn't, but it absolutely could have,
and it was also just horrifying for it. And it's
worth pointing this out right. The people who are getting
killed on both sides of the border here, like Ar
Keshmiri's right, because like their home has been occupied by
these two powers. When when India and Pakistan go to war,
(10:47):
the people who die on both sides are Ar kashmiris right,
who are being killed by two states who decided, fuck you,
we get to control your fate. We get to be
the people who fucking occupy your land and then claim
to be the people who represent you. And you know,
the civilian toll of this is fucking horrifying. There's a
bunch of a bunch of civilians are killed. People spend
(11:09):
a huge amount of time cowering in these like horrifying
overcrowded bunkers. There's a good sort of BBC report on this,
Like there's so many people packed into bunkers that like
you can't even like walk. Everyone's just like pressed against
each other. And three days later you come out of
your bunker and your fucking house is gone. And those
are the people who survived, right. It's it's just horrifying,
(11:32):
And eventually there's a ceasefire. Everyone is now saying different
things about the ceasefire. The Indian government is trying to
downplay the US's role in the ceasefire. The Pakistani government
has been talking about how a whole bunch of places
were involved, including like Iran and Turkey to some extent,
or Turkey more than Iran. It seems like the US,
the UK, and Saudi Arabia all played a role in
(11:56):
sort of mediating it. That that we can sort of
confirm the US SEMs to have played the largest role,
which I guess I don't know. Like Marco Rubio was like,
we should probably not have a war between to nuclear powers,
which okay, I'm glad that, like he's finally found a thing,
a level that he won't stoop to, which is we
(12:17):
all die in nuclear war.
Speaker 1 (12:21):
I mean, like I would rather Maka Rubio was not
the Secretary of State, but like of the people who
could be under Trump administration. He's not as bad as
somebody other folks.
Speaker 2 (12:32):
Yeah, I mean it's like he we are fully in
Like which of Hitler's generals would you prefer to be
in charge of this territory? All these people.
Speaker 3 (12:43):
Yeah, we don't need it. We don't need a debate
raml right now. What we do need to do is
throw to ads the Irwin Rommel of the podcast industry.
Speaker 2 (13:02):
Okay, so there are a few things about this conflict
that are very, very bad. One is that India has
demonstrated the capacity to launch attacks against Pakistan that don't
involve them mobilizing their ground troops, which takes forever. It
is hard. That's really fucking bad. It's also bad that
again they fucking hit like the air base next to
Pakistan General Army General Headquarters, which means if they try
(13:25):
to do another attack, they're gonna have to hit a
bigger target and they apparently it seems like the Indian
government has sort of concluded that they can do this now.
It's also very bad that like most of the like
domestic Indian left supported this, including CPIM to the comediest
Party of India Marxist, which is like the sort of
social democratic technically maoist party that is supposed to be
like the left in India, like back the attacks, and
(13:47):
they've always had a fucking terrible line on Kashmir. So
it's also we're mentioning a little bit. There's been a
lot of reporting about India. You know, Modia isn't making
a bunch of noise about trying to just straight up
cut off Pakistan's access to water, which is very scary. Yeah,
it's worth noting. Kay talks about this in that Jocobin piece.
(14:09):
Case argument basically is that like they don't actually have
the infrastructure to do this, which is good because I
mean that would be a genocide. Like if they just
knocked out all back Then's access to water for agricultural
purposes and for drinking purposes, it'd be really bad. But
here's what I'm going to read this quote. Under the
Treaty regulations, India is required to share hydrological data that
is essential for planning to deal with floods and or
drought dream monsoon seasons. Denying Pakistan access to this data
(14:32):
would have a damaging impact. Moreover, because of the limited
storage capacity, India can change the timing of water flow,
which is crucial for many crops during sewing seasons. So
there is still a lot of damage they can do.
They can't straight up do like a genocide, but they
can do a lot of damage. And while both sides
have backed off of like direct military conflict, India still
(14:54):
is committed to every single thing they can do to
fuck with Pakistan, which affects just like the people Pakistan.
This has also been politically very good for Modi because
alternationalism has been bolstering the sort of like Pakistani military
government because there are alternationalists feed off of this, and
it's once again really fucking bad for the people of Kashmir,
who are the ones getting killed in on both sides
of the border. Yep, war is bad. Free Kashmir hate this.
Speaker 4 (15:18):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (15:19):
Well, speaking of war being bad, let's talk about what's
going on in Yemen. So if you remember from the
last quarter or so of the Biden administration, after Israel launched,
there were prizal attacks to October seventh on Gaza, the Huthis,
which is a depending on your stance, either the legitimate
(15:42):
government of Yemen or a rebel group in Yemen. You know,
the international community stance is a rebel group, the Houthis
Stance is different started launching a series of missile attacks,
both aimed at Israel and aimed at shipping in the
Gulf of Aden, right in order to disrupt because the
significant amount of the world's trade goes through there. And
this took a number of forms. They have ballistic missiles,
(16:04):
some of them are indigenous, by which I mean made
by the who the these oftentimes using stocks that were
captured from the military and government of Yemen previously. You
know that they supplanted in a lot of areas and
other times using missiles that were given to them by Iran. Yeah, right,
so it's a mix of tactics. They have also used
(16:25):
drones and they have also landed troops in order to
capture bulk freighters, including one called the Galaxy Leader and
I think twenty twenty three that was full of cars
and their claim was that it was a British vessel,
and obviously the Brits had been helping to arm and
support Israel. The vessel was actually registered in Lebanon. However,
(16:49):
whenever we get to discussions about like whose vessel is,
who's none of that. None of what is registered matters
vessels are registered all over the place for a variety
of nothing.
Speaker 4 (16:56):
It's always nonsense.
Speaker 3 (16:58):
That means nothing in Marshall Islands. Yeah, like nothing in
the entire world. Matters less to the reality of a
situation than where the vessel is registered. I'm not saying
that justifies er does it with the houthis that. I'm
just saying it does not matter where the vessel is registered. Yeah, yeah,
the ship was owned by a Lebanon based company. But
also given the nature of capitals, it doesn't all matter
(17:20):
all that much.
Speaker 4 (17:20):
Now.
Speaker 3 (17:21):
What also doesn't matter is that in January of this year,
the Hoothi's freed the captain of that ship and they
made an announcement that they would limit further attacks to
vessels flagged at as Israeli or owned by Israeli individuals
or entities. Right now, that also doesn't mean a lot, right,
because the nature of international trade means that there are
(17:43):
a lot of you know, you could basically argue, if
you're the houthis well this this is owned by a
multinational corporation who owns companies in Israel, or who has
heavy investments in companies in Israel. Therefore, right as a result,
you know, the Hoothi's continued doing the hoothy stuff and
saw them as kind of a convenient target, a convenient
(18:03):
place to flex's military muscles. And there were some people
within the United States defense establishment that considered that extremely convenient, too, right,
And this is largely due to the fact that Biden
prescribed a very limited campaign against the Huthies. Now this
does not mean inexpensive or insignificant. We kept at least
one aircraft carrier carrying out strikes in Yemen for like
(18:25):
a year or so, which is kind of the first
combat duty that an aircraft carrier has had in quite
some time that was really like active taking incoming fire,
not incoming fire that ever really threatened the carrier itself.
Speaker 4 (18:37):
But that's sort of beside the point.
Speaker 3 (18:39):
And there were people within the US military establishment who
were consistently frustrated with the Biden administration that they were
not letting them operate at a high enough tempo, right,
And kind of the number one guy advocating for this
side of events was General Michael E. Carilla, who is
the head of Central Command or syentcom right, and his
attitude had been wed a much more aggressive, high tempo
(19:01):
campaign he pitched the Trump administration when they came in.
I think it's like an eight to ten month long
campaign where initially they would degrade who their anti air asset.
So first we go in there and we use our
air power to establish air what's called air supremacy.
Speaker 4 (19:16):
Right.
Speaker 3 (19:16):
Air superiority means that you have better quality air support,
but also your shit can get knocked down. Air supremacy
means you have complete control of the skies.
Speaker 4 (19:27):
Right.
Speaker 3 (19:27):
The US military is fairly used to having air supremacy
if you look at, like, for example, our combat in
Iraq and Afghanistan when it came to like height, like
like fighter aircraft helicopters would get shot down from time
to time obviously and have accidents. We weren't losing F
eighteens in Afghanistan, right, like they weren't getting knocked out
(19:48):
of the fucking sky by the Taliban. We had air
supremacy in Ukraine. Depending on what part of the battlespace
you're talking about, either things have been more or less
at a standstill, or Russia has had air superior but
not supremacy, right, because Ukraine has very solid modern anti
aircraft defenses, and it has been able to exact a toll.
We will talk to a greater extent about what's been
(20:10):
happening with India and Pakistan. It is exceedingly unclear at
the moment who got the better of the engagement. Did
any of those Chinese anti aircraft missiles actually knock out aircraft?
Did any India lose any aircraft? Did Pakistan down an aircraft?
We actually like everyone's making different claims right now, and
I don't have objective evidence right other than that we
(20:31):
can we know that things that there's at least evidence of,
at least one case what looks like refkage of a
rough fall, and in at least one case there's what
looks like a knocked down Chinese anti aircraft missile. I'm
spacing on the exact name right now, but again that
doesn't mean anything about how they actually affair in the battlespace,
right So anyway, Yeah, this motherfucker he had a syncom.
Michael Lee Carilla was like, I've got this plan. We
(20:54):
need a much more force. We're going to knock out
their anti air defenses and then we're going to basically
carry out a modif version of what Israel carried out
against Hamas and has Belah, Right, where we start targeting
and killing the leadership cadro once we've knocked out their defenses.
And he estimated that would take about a little under
a year, right, but the better part of a year.
And the Trump administration said, you can have your higher
(21:15):
tempo war, but you've got to.
Speaker 4 (21:18):
Show results in about a month.
Speaker 3 (21:20):
Right, In about a month, the US military carried out
about eleven hundred strikes. They killed, they say, hundreds of
hooty fighters, destroyed quite a bit of weapons and equipment.
Very unclear how many fighters they killed, certainly hundreds of people.
Were those all hoothy fighters? How many weapons and equipment
were destroyed? I don't have access to that sort of data,
and I'm not entirely confident that anyone in the US
(21:42):
military has a much better idea certainly a little bit
more data. But also they get that shit wrong all
the fucking time.
Speaker 2 (21:49):
Yeah. It's also like it's worth noting right when they're
talking about like casualty numbers, the Huthis are not a
small rebel group like now they control the capital of Yemen, right,
Like this is like the government, right, Yeah, they have.
Speaker 3 (22:04):
Not a peer state in terms of the US and
that they do not have the manufacturing base and capacity,
but they are equivalent to a small state actor, right yeah, yeah, and.
Speaker 2 (22:15):
So and so what you're bombing them, right like you're
you're just you're blowing smoking creators and apartment buildings.
Speaker 3 (22:22):
And the Hoothies are so experienced with getting bombed. They've
been bombed by a lot of people before. None of
this is new to them, right, yeah. So in the
first thirty days, while they you know, the US has
made a lot, has made a lot of claims about
how many people they killed and the level of degradation
of Hoothy capacity, the Houthis have done some damage to
(22:43):
US capacity. They have shot down seven at this point
at least seven m Q nine Reaper drones, which are
thirty million dollars each. And in addition, now four f
eighteen jets have been lost not probably not yeah, probably
just to fuck ups that are a result of the
tenth of activity.
Speaker 4 (23:00):
Right.
Speaker 3 (23:01):
These all tend to be craft that are landing and
don't get caught by the catapult system that they've got
on these aircraft carriers or otherwise wind up in the
Red Sea. Right, there is some suspicion and debate is
to like, is there any sort of like internal treason
going on here? Is somebody on the aircraft carrier making
(23:23):
these fuck ups happen. This is being investigated, I believe,
although there's no confirmation about like what exactly has gone down.
It's weird to lose this many FA eighteen super hornets
and a very short period of time.
Speaker 2 (23:36):
Yeah, I will say my understanding of it, also, is
it the everything that's going on here is that this
aircraft carrier has been out past the point it should
have been refitted. Yes, like so extraordinarily.
Speaker 3 (23:46):
And it's also not weird that people fuck up when
they are carrying on operations at a tempo they never
have before. Right, And there's a very good chance that
it's nothing more than that the more you fly, the
more accidents are going to happen.
Speaker 4 (23:58):
Right, Yeah.
Speaker 2 (23:58):
Period. Also say, I want to say, imagine you were
like the deck office.
Speaker 3 (24:03):
Oh man, that poor motherfucker, that motherfucker's getting fucked, Like yeah,
I think the first one goes over, right, and then
the second one, uh huh goes yeah, And now it's
happening right now, you've probably been you're out of the
push job, and that first guy is kind of lucky
because when the next two fall off, at least maybe that's.
Speaker 4 (24:23):
Less pressure on you.
Speaker 2 (24:24):
Yeah, Like imagine like you're the deck officer of the fourth.
Speaker 3 (24:29):
Yeah, yeah, Jesus right, God, that's gotta suck. So in
about thirty days, the US military had burned more than
a billion dollars on this operation, right at which point
Trump and people around him were like, oh fuck, we
(24:49):
can't keep this ship up. We can't maintain this tempo
of operations. There were warnings given for within the Defense
Department that we have used so many of our most
advanced munitions that if China makes a move on Taiwan,
we're not sure we have the reserves necessary right these munitions.
When we talk a lot about the capacity of US firepower,
people talk about shit like in twenty eighteen, how we
(25:10):
like a There was this Alqaeda guy who had been
responsible for the attack on the US coal twenty something.
Speaker 4 (25:18):
Years ago, Yeah, a long gas time ago, who used.
Speaker 3 (25:21):
A cell phone he shouldn't have used briefly and then
turned it off, and we were able to get visual
confirmation of where he was from the cell phone signal
and knock his ass out with a drone right, and
we do have incredible capacity potentially to make unbelievably precise strikes. However,
that capacity is reliant both upon a functional network of
(25:44):
human intelligence, a functional network of operators of aircraft and
drones who are not completely burnt out by the tempo
of operations, and access to incredibly advanced munitions, which we
do not have an inexhaustible capacity and are reliant upon
an international supply chain to continue to manufacture right, and
(26:04):
all of that has been endangered by the tempo of
this campaign. And ultimately there's a great New York Times
report on this that's just absolutely damning to the military
that came out as called why Trump suddenly declared victory
over the Hoothy militia, that declared that after all of this,
the best we can say is perhaps a modest degradation
(26:24):
of Hoothy capacities that they can easily recover from given
enough time, which they're going to get. Because Trump both
declared victory and stated that the Hoothies had yet again
agreed to stop striking shipping in the Red Sea, and
he was like, this is a win. We made a
deal with him, big deal maker. Donald Trump made a deal. Now,
if you look at the Houthi said, all they said
is we're going to stop striking Israeli shipping, which, if
(26:46):
you'll recall, is what they had said in January.
Speaker 4 (26:51):
So did we win?
Speaker 1 (26:55):
Now?
Speaker 3 (26:56):
Did the Hoothies win? Not yet, but they're you know,
they didn't lose. And again, if you understand your insurgent warfare,
you win by just not losing for long enough.
Speaker 4 (27:07):
Right.
Speaker 2 (27:07):
Yeah, Well, and it's also worth it's worth mentioning too
when you're talking about the global supply chain part of this. Right,
on the one hand, like the US has done an
extraordinary amount to try to make sure that as much
as the supply chain as they can is in the US.
On the other hand, it still requires a bunch of
chef mother places, including a bunch of rare earth metals
that the US gets from China. Now you may be
noting we are currently fighting a trade war with China.
(27:29):
A bunch of the our like strategic planning is about
stopping a Chinese invasion of Taiwan. So and we've just
expended a shit ton of our stack pilot yeahs, that
we can only replace by using shit we get from China.
So absolute just gedious brain shit that that that's happening
here right now at the highest levels of the highest
(27:50):
levels of the regime.
Speaker 1 (27:52):
Meanma has a lot of rare earth metals, but we
have China is currently lot closer to securing those than
the United States is. Yeah, it's not great.
Speaker 3 (28:01):
Well that's all I got. That's the hoodies. Let's have
another ad break real quick here.
Speaker 1 (28:06):
Yeah, let's do that.
Speaker 4 (28:06):
Let's do that.
Speaker 1 (28:07):
Let's have an ad break. Lovely, what a nice advertising
break we are. Now that I know many of you
have been asking me about what is happening in Kurdistan,
(28:28):
so I'm going to try my best to very briefly
explain that in the last segment of this show. So,
the PKK right, the PKK being the branch of the
Kurdish Freedom Movement that has operated in Turkey as Turkey
or Northern Kurdistan, and mostly since the mid twenty teens
(28:50):
has been based in a Rack or Southern Kurdistan. Right,
it convened its twelfth Congress in the second week of
May and it decided to disband it self, lay down
its arms, and I think the phrasing it used was
to cease armed activities under the PKK name, which is
a way of saying things more broadly, It did genuinely
(29:16):
seem to indicate a commitment to like this sort of
ballot not the bullet approach. And I'm going to quote
kind of extensively here from the statement that the PKK released,
and then from other statements from people Genmilbick, the leader,
one of the co chairs of the KCK. The KK,
if you're not familiar, it's a Curdistan Communities Union that
(29:39):
is a group that allows the different areas of the
Kurdish Freedom Movement, all of which are inspired by the
political thought of abd Aujilan, to sort of come together
and discuss their paradigm, their goals, their methodologies. I guess,
so I want to read from the PKK statement to
(30:01):
begin with quote the process initiated by Leader Abdullah or
Janan statement of February twenty seventh, and further shaped by
his extensive work and multi dimensional perspectives, culminated in the
successful convening of our twelfth Party Congress between May fifth
and May the seventh, despite ongoing clashes, aerial and ground attacks,
continued siege of our regions, and the KDP embargo our
(30:24):
Congress was held securely under challenging conditions due to security concerns.
It was conducted simultaneously in two different locations, with a
participation of two hundred and thirty two delegates in total.
The PKK twelfth Congress discussed leadership, martyrs, veterans, the organizational
structure of the PKK and armed struggle and democratic society building,
culminating in the historic decisions marking the beginning of a
(30:47):
new era for a freedom movement. It's a very long statement,
as tends to be the style of statements from the
Curdish freedom movement. It talks a lot about Abdullah Jelen,
as tends to be the style of statement from the
Kurdish freedom movement. I've I have linked to itinly shown
as if you'd like to read all of it, and
you know, I'd encourage you too, you're interested in this
sort of thing. They talk a lot about the democratic
(31:09):
nation concept and the idea that occurs in Turks of
coxisted in Turkey for a long time. I thought this
part was of interest, and going to quote again here
the decision of our Congress to dissolve the PKK and
end the method of armed struggle offers a strong basis
for a lasting piece and a democratic solution. Implementing these
decisions requires that leader Appo Appo, it's the evocative form
(31:32):
of the Kurdish word for paternal uncle, but in this
in this instance, it is referring to abdulah Jaalan, right,
that's his nickname. Leader Appo, lead and guide the process
that has right to democratic politics be recognized and that solid,
comprehensive legal guarantees be established. At this stage, it is
essential that the Grand National Assembly of Turkey plays its
(31:53):
role with historical responsibility. So a couple of things that
are of note there. One is that the talking about
this transition towards democracy or a brotherhood of nations, the
talk about somewhere else right, brotherhood of people's it's occurring
under the leadership and direction of Abdulla Jelan. If you
are not familiar with Abdullah Ouscherlan, you can listen to
(32:14):
Robert's theories. So the women's wards are the great job
of explaining a lot of the stuff that we won't
have time to get into today. Very briefly, Appo has
been in Imrali and various other Turkish prisons since nineteen
ninety nine. For long periods of that time, no one
was able to see him. He was held completely in communicado.
(32:34):
At times there were hundreds of troops guiding only him
on this Turkish prison island. That is no longer a case. Right.
He made this statement on the twenty seventh of February,
and since then the Kurdish Freedom Movement has had access
to Ouscherlan. Right. He actually made another statement on the
eighteenth of May where he said, I quote, a new
(32:57):
contract is needed based on the law of brotherhood. What
we are doing represents a major paradigm shift. The nature
of the Turkish Kurdish relationship is fundamentally different what has
been broken in the bond of brotherhood. It seems like
through the DEM Party right, which is a left leaning
party in Turkey, which has supported the Kurdish cause and
for a long time has served as the interlocutor between
(33:21):
Turkey and the Kurdish Freedom movement. Through the DEM Party,
they have access to Ouserland and they're able relatively frequently.
It seems like these DEM Party officials to go to
him rally and talk to him, and so they're talking
about his leadership continuing through this democratic Transition right for
(33:43):
the Curdish Freedom Movement. Jimil Bikes Jimil Bick again is
the co chair of the casey K and institutions. Within
the Kurdish Freedom Movement. There's a co chair system, right,
which means so that a man and a woman share
the chairmanship of an institution, such that patriarchal structures aren't
replicated in the movement. That's the goal of the co
(34:05):
chair system. He has a two part interview in A
and F which I've linked again in the notes. He
talked about how like the first role of the PKK,
of the movement, even before it was called the PKK,
was to quote unquote reveal the Kurdish quote unquote Kurdish question. Right,
That's how they refer to it. Other times I'll talk
about her Kurdish people were on their knees and like
(34:27):
under the leadership of Augiland they stood up. They talk
about also how Mount Ararat, Turkey has a plaque apparently
where it says like here is buried the imaginary Kurdish nation,
and like the Kurdish nation is certainly not buried anymore, right,
Like it it's very active. Kurds are very politically empowered
in two of the four countries where Kurds live, right,
Like in Turkey they are to a lesser extent, but
(34:49):
they're still present, right, No one could deny their presence.
In Iran, it's still, I guess more difficult the time
for the Kurdish freedom movement, Biack said. Within our initial paradigm,
our first manifesto, the Kurdish identity, the Kurdish people and
Kurdish society were formed. A society in love with freedom
was formed. People emerged that would fight for freedom under
(35:10):
any circumstances. On this basis, we are now developing a
new paradigm, a second manifesto. This paradigm, this manifesto aimed
to resolve not only the Kurdish question, but also the
issues of the peoples of the Middle East and humanity
as a whole. Rabert Apple, Rayber Smith's leader, Raybert Apple
is no longer leading only the Kurdish people. He's leading
all peoples of humanity. Yeah it's yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,
(35:42):
it's yeah. This is the sort of rehtoric we can
expect from the get the k c K right, Like
they're very dedicated to Julan as a leader. Yes, yes,
and you know, Robert and I have both been trus Java.
Speaker 3 (35:55):
I've heard a lot of no life without our leader's
speeches and seeing a lot of a lot of those
pert as well.
Speaker 1 (36:00):
Yeah yeah, yeah, Like you can't really go into a
space you'll see other Like it's not just Ocherlan, right,
You're going to see a wind I can, and you're
going to see it's not like just a guy with
a mustache. You're going to see women idolized in the
movement too. But auscher Land to the greatest extent is
like their dear leader figure. You can see his face
all over Rashava and they're very dedicated to Ouscherlen's leadership.
(36:24):
And like this change in structure does not change that,
or this change it approach has not changed that. In fact,
it underlines that, right, Like from the letter that Ouserlean
wrote and he wrote letters to different parts of the
Kurdish Freedom movement came this change, right, So it's still
at the instruction of Ochelin, albeit with the consent of
(36:47):
these delegates who went to this PKK congress right and voted.
I've reached out to the k c K to ask
for comment on like exactly what this means in terms
of like to the casey k as I said, are
in the mountains of southern Kurdistan now, and they have
fought Turkey there for years. Right, We've covered that on
(37:07):
this podcast. Northern Iraq, Southern Kerdistan, however you wish to
call it like Turkey has been bombing They were bombing
it last time I was there. I'm sure they were
bombing it last time Robert was there. They've been bombing
it ever since. And the villages that have really suffered
as a result. Right, people have lost their children, they've
lost their lands, they've often had their crops burned right
(37:30):
by these bombs. So I'm interested to know that will
the idea of the Kurdish Freedom Movement leaving the mountains
there is I mean, it would be a hell of
a site they've been in. They've been in those mountains
for a long time. But I don't know what this
means for the Kurdish Freedom Movement in southern Kurdistan. But
(37:51):
I've asked. I don't know if this means that they
will attempt like a straight up electoral strategy, right, or
when Ogerland's asking for a new contract, right, like a
new social contract that's how in Raja. But they literally
have a social contract, right. The social contract is generally
like a theoretical construct in most like neoliberal democracies, the
(38:12):
idea that you and the state enter into an agreement
whereby you give up some freedom and you lose some
danger and the state give you some safety and it
takes some of your freedom. In Raja, but the social
contract is a real thing, right, Like, it's a thing
that is formed in consultation with society. So when when
we see APPO asking a bandon new contract, does that
(38:34):
mean that they will engage like on the basis of
a new Turkish constitution. I don't know. I don't think
any of us have answers to these questions, and I
imagine that they don't either. Write like they have decided
to pursue this strategy of peace. They've decided that through
their armed conflict, they were able to prove that they exist.
And that's a phrase that specifically people have said to
(38:56):
me in the Kurdish Freedom movement, like we had to
pick up arms to pre that we exist, and now
that there's no denying their existence, they can use different methods, right,
Like they're put down their weapons and talk and established
with Turkey how to coexist, having established that they exist
through the armed struggle. So for them, this is like
(39:16):
they're celebrating it, right. They'll draw the analogy very often
to like Shinfein in Ireland, that's one that you're here
pretty often, and that this is their Good Friday. Now.
In the Good Friday Agreement, Britainer released people from prison.
Number of very highly cherished, very highly respected members of
the Curdish Freedom movement are still in prison. Of course,
(39:38):
Oderlan being the most sort of widely loved and respected
member of the Kurdish Freedom movement. I don't think we're
seeing Osderlan come out of prison. I don't think there's
a world in which Turkey would let that happen. But
maybe we will see some other people released. Maybe we
will see those people. I don't enter into electoral politics.
Some of them have been in the struggle for fifty
(40:01):
plus years, right, like fifty years living in the mountains
and constantly being worried about being bombed. So it'll be
fascinating to see how this this has been a long
and bloody conflict. It has been going for longer than
any of us have been alive. If the friends are happy,
then I'm happy for them, right, And if peace is
what they want and they can get away to continue,
(40:24):
like General Bick says, like the people in love with freedom,
Like if they can keep their freedom and they can
do it without war, then I'm happy for them, because,
like I've talked to a lot of Kurdish parents who
have buried their children.
Speaker 3 (40:36):
God Almighty been to too many of the graveyards and
northern Syria.
Speaker 1 (40:40):
Yeah, yeah, there's little white graveyards with little children's faces.
Like that will stay with me forever whatever stops that,
you know, Yeah, Like if one of the things that
kind of struck me when I was in Rajaba last
time is that like death just falls from the night
sky sometimes, yeah, and maybe maybe it's your baby, maybe
it's you, maybe into your grandma, And it's a pretty
(41:03):
horrible way to live. And going through that for your
freedom is something very brave. And they have endured some
of the worst conflict on the planet in the last
few decades, right, They've fought some of the worst fucking
people on the planet on one and if there is
a way that the people of kurdisf Stan can enjoy peace,
I want that for them because they've been at war
(41:25):
for a very long time. Yep, hi, everyone, it's James,
and which is adding this pick up to the episode.
I was able to get some questions answered on behalf
of the Kurdish Friedim movement, and I would just like
to share those answers with you. So I asked if
Aojulan was able to address the Congress. I'd previously been
told he was. This is a response. Throughout the more
(41:46):
than twenty six years that Kurdish People's Leader Abdula Ogelan
has been held hostage in the prison island of him Rally,
he has always found waves to convey his messages and
perspectives to the Congress of the PKK that has taken place.
So it was again regarding the twelfth Conggress of the PKK,
which convened from May the fifth to May the seventh
in the Free Mountains of Kurdistan. He was able to
forward his ideas and analysis via the various delegations that
(42:08):
have visited him throughout the last few months. I asked
about Ojulan's call for a new social contract and they
told me Curtish People's Leader ab Dela Ojuln's calls and
the historic initiatives that he has taken do not imply
that the Turkish State has adopted the same attitude or
that the state has changed its approach. Kurdish People's leader
abd Lor Aujulin is not simply hoping for a change
of mentality in the state, but it's moving forward developing
(42:31):
his project and thereby pulling the state along with him.
What he is currently primarily concerned with is a redefining
and reconstruction of the historical alliance of the Kurdish and
Turkish people, which has been derailed during the past century.
A long term democratic solution to the Kurdish question necessitates
a recognition of the role of the Kurds in the
establishment of development of the republic. Relations between the peoples
(42:51):
must be brought back to the historical routes, so division
cannot be realized Unilatterally, it lays in the nature of
the way the struggle at the Kurdish People's lead ab
de l Or and the PKK that when they want
to achieve a solution to a specific issue, they initially
create through struggle the necessary conditions and contexts for it.
What Abdul ojuland does is to set the context and
to encourage all related circles in Turkey to take upon
(43:14):
their responsibility for our lasting peace. And then I wanted
to ask about the people who were incarcerated and like
the steps that they needed from the Turkish state in
order for this peace process to continue.
Speaker 4 (43:25):
And this is what they said.
Speaker 1 (43:26):
A historic initiative was taken by Curdish People's Leader Abdula
Aujilan and the PKK. First of all, there was the
publication of the quote call for peace and democratic society
and quote on February twenty sevenths. Then there was a
declaration of the unilateral ceasefire on March first, and now
there was the twelve PKK Congress May fifth to seventh
was a decision to dissolve the PKK. All of those
(43:49):
steps were unilateral steps that were not the result of
negotiations with the state. So far, no official negotiation to
take a place and oritenal verbal agreements have been reached.
The steps taken were only a sign of goodwill and
expression of seriousness about peace. Now it is upon the
Turkish state to answer to this initiative and take the
first practical legal steps. So far, all we have seen
(44:10):
is empty rhetoric. For the process to actually unfold, Kurdish
People's leader Abdullah Oujelan must first of all, regain his
physical freedom and the conditions for him to work freely,
healthily and securely must be guaranteed so that he can
fulfill his role as a chief negotiator of the Kurdish people. Also,
the constitutional reforms that grant the basic rights for the
Kurds and recognize them as one of the primary constituents
(44:32):
that a republic must take place.
Speaker 3 (44:33):
Now.
Speaker 1 (44:34):
These are the first necessary steps. From there a peace
process can unfold.
Speaker 4 (44:40):
If you're wondering about Rajava.
Speaker 1 (44:41):
Just to finish up, Muslumabdi made a statement Aslumbdi, leader
of the Syrian Democratic Forces Right, sometimes called General muslium
Hova Muslum depends who, depends what side of things you're on,
I guess. Muslum Abdi made a statement congratulating the PKKA,
saying he hoped to all parties supported the peace process.
The sea it is still in clashes with remnants of
(45:03):
the so called Islamic State and increasingly with Sunnis within
the Syrian Revolution who are growing disheartened with what they
see as al Shara's moderate turn right, the Damascus government
being to live for some of these sunny groups, and
so isis the Islamic State whatever you want to call it.
(45:26):
Dash is using that as a chance to recruit people,
and that is why we are seeing ongoing fighting. I
literally I saw that they were They were burying one
of their SDF fighters in Kamish Flow today. So unfortunately
for the people of Fra Java, the killing and dying continues, which, yes,
(45:46):
it's sad, yes, yeah, I want peace for my friends
there and in Burma. Like yeah, despite the fact that
Robert and I get paid to go to wars sometimes,
it doesn't mean we don't want a friends to live
in peace.
Speaker 4 (45:56):
Yeah. I would like there to not be any more
to go to.
Speaker 1 (45:59):
Yeah, that would be great.
Speaker 4 (46:00):
I'll find something else to do.
Speaker 1 (46:01):
Yeah, fuck it, I'll go run with the bulls again.
Speaker 4 (46:03):
I went White Rottter rafting yesterday. It was nice. I
could just do more of that.
Speaker 1 (46:07):
Yeah, yeah, no, I'll will climb.
Speaker 3 (46:08):
Yeah, you know, all right, everybody, We're done for the day.
Go hopefully not live in a war zone. But if
you do, hopefully that stops so peace.
Speaker 2 (46:20):
It could happen Here is a production of cool Zone Media.
Speaker 4 (46:23):
For more podcasts from cool Zone Media, visit our website
Coolzonemedia dot com, or check us out on the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts.
Speaker 2 (46:33):
You can now find sources for it could happen here
listed directly in episode descriptions.
Speaker 1 (46:37):
Thanks for listening.
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Robert Evans
Garrison Davis
James Stout
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