Another Letter to Senators Casey & Fetterman
In a barbaric act on Christmas morning, the Erdogan regime in Turkey unleashed a wave of bombings against civilian targets in *North and East Syria that killed 8 civilians and wounded more than a dozen. The attacks targeted 18 different civilian infrastructure sites in Kurdish-led North and East Syria, with 32 airstrikes on Christmas Day. The sites included a hospital, train station, grain silos, a mill, a petrol (Gas) station, factories producing construction materials, a printing house and a book-binding operation. So, please let's have No More Jets for Turkey until that nation learns to behave decently towards it's neighbors. **Reminders: Much of N.E. Syria is administered by A.A.N.E.S. (also known as 'Rojava' and as D.A.A.N.E.S.) This area is Autonomous, since the withdrawal of Assad's forces (army of Syria) in 2012. This means that: 1. Assad's Syria has no role inside of AANES. 2. what is known locally as 'the revolution' had it's 10 year anniversary in July 2022. 3. AANES is NOT A Succession movement. No independent "country" was set up. The hope is that the ideals expressed locally in N.E. Syria will spread to the rest of Syria and beyond. These ideals are autonomy, gender equality, an end to the historic oppression of women, along with the democratization of the family, direct democracy, (including full participation of women in civic, social affairs) equality for all minorities, religious, ethnic, cultural and so on. 4. ISIS aka the Islamic State, also known as DAESH was driven out of N.E. Syria by the S.D.F. (Syrian Democratic Forces) in partnership with the U.S.-led alliance. Local AANES militias YPG and YPJ were full participants in ground combat. After Barack Obama 's administration ended, the Trump administration ended the alliance, and that alliance was later restored by the Biden administration. The U.S. state department lifted the sanctions with respect to A.A.N.E.S./ N.E. Syria.( A clear recognition that AANES is Not the Assad regime, and is not connected to the Assad regime). Many of the ISIS detainees, and their families are still held by AANES because their countries of origin have mostly refused to have them back. The U.S. for example took back 28 out of 300. Here is a Link on that issue: https://www.mei.edu/publications/why-its-time-repatriate-foreign-fighters
After all this, they still have to deal with the belligerence of the Turkish state.
In short, I ask for your assistance in helping to provide a No-Fly Zone for A.A.N.E.S. and stopping the transfer of the 40 F-16 jets to Turkey, (valued at $20 Billion dollars). Let's remember that Anthony Blinken, during his Confirmation Hearing noted that "Turkey is a U.S. ally in Name only" If we are going to support democratic ideals, we should doing so without inconsistencies.
Thank you