I’m an anthropologist, sometimes I occupy things & such.

I see anarchism as something you do not an identity...

...so don’t call me the anarchist anthropologist

Twitter was David’s public platform and tools for practicing a new language – clear and understandable for everyone, it was a space where he made friends and enemies.

Tweets 7,501 Replies 51,144 Retweets 24,559 Everything 83,204
Sat 10 Feb 2018 18:39

this looks like an accurate account of deaths in Afrin: Turkish army lost c 30, but mostly hiding behind 100s of Jihadi deaths. SDF lost many fewer fighters, but Turkish forces managed to kill large numbers of civilians https://t.co/UctefPFQym

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Sat 10 Feb 2018 18:33

not to mention arresting a British SDF veteran who returns from fighting ISIS and charging him with terrorism for doing so https://t.co/D6DJw4w9K2

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Sat 10 Feb 2018 03:33

another bit of info I’d like to track down: Erdogan, when he was running for President, apparently revealed files showing that Turkish intelligence faked a lot of atrocities to blame on the PKK. Anyone have any documentation for that? (Turkish will do but English preferred.)

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Fri 9 Feb 2018 23:52

anybody can give me a link to the Turkish general who was caught saying “we could just fake a rocket attack” from Rojava on Turkey?

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Fri 9 Feb 2018 00:46

love the way this story describes ISIS as using’ “exceptionally cruel torture methods, including electronic shock & waterboarding.” Say wasn’t it just a few years ago pretty much every US Republicans was saying waterboarding wasn’t really torture? https://t.co/zjP9J0OSMI

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Thu 8 Feb 2018 15:25

Excellent: Turkish invaders & jihadi allies will hence be always referred to as “chicken thieves” https://t.co/RHCcrOoLWY

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Wed 7 Feb 2018 16:44

so I posted a link to my thread critiquing Juan Cole’s piece on his blog. Comments are moderated. What do you think are the odds he’ll let it go up instead of censoring it? 100 to 1? 1000 to 1? https://t.co/XkDm0XgGfS

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Wed 7 Feb 2018 13:02

29. it’s true Cole didn’t leave that out, just hid it at the end, but the entire piece is an exercise in subtly justifying ethnic cleansing by falsely claiming a. “they’re all Kurd nationalists & not multi-ethnic” b. they would ethnically cleanse others, c. they’re terrorists.

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Wed 7 Feb 2018 13:00

28. In other words, “oh btw, if you managed to get to the end, the Turkish army is actually intending to commit world-class war crimes” (Erdogan actually said he’d do this so it isn’t something just kind of Cole figured out). In case you’re curious.

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Wed 7 Feb 2018 12:59

27 … which he feels are not important enough to mention, even though the almost certainly false claims of YPG attacks on Turkish towns he manages to work in TWICE. Here’s how it ends: https://t.co/zJMWNAPllJ

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Wed 7 Feb 2018 12:57

26. … and something like 127 documented civilian deaths from indiscriminate Turkish shelling, airstrikes, etc, on Afrin’s towns & villages, not to mention Daesh-style intentional destruction of archaeological monuments …

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Wed 7 Feb 2018 12:56

25. not mentioning the fact that 1.there were no reported casualties until the invasion, & in combat shells might go astray, 2. Turkish officers are recorded saying they will do “false flag” attacks, 3. even if it was a YPG shell, there has been only one death recorded …

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Wed 7 Feb 2018 12:54

24. then he AGAIN makes the statement that the YPG is shelling Turkish civilian areas, the key Turkish propaganda line in claiming the defenders against their unprovoked attack are somehow “terrorists” never mentioning the hundreds of civilian deaths from Turkish bombardment

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Wed 7 Feb 2018 12:52

23. here’s the penultimate paragraph. First he gives the Turkish casualty claims which are obviously insanely understated (they seem to have lost 10-20 tanks by now), leaving out either SDF claims, OR those of the neutral Syrian War observers https://t.co/ZSrxHTko0y

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Wed 7 Feb 2018 12:48

22. so once again Cole is effectively lying, w/out literally lying, by deceptive use of sources & refusal to give actual documented facts which show the very opposite of what the Turkish official line is, is in fact true

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Wed 7 Feb 2018 12:46

21. … for months, w YPG refusing to respond. Cole completely leaves that out but instead does include the extremely dubious claims by Turkey (we have a recording of a Turkish commander openly saying they can just send some guys over w a rocket launcher to fake such an attack)

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Wed 7 Feb 2018 12:45

20. next comes the line of Turkey accusing the YPG of shelling towns across the border. This is outrageous. Obviously it’s not literally untrue: Turkey does say that. But the reality is well-documented by HR groups: it’s Turkey that’s been shelling civilians in YPG territory …

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Wed 7 Feb 2018 12:43

19. Manbij i.e. was once majority Kurd, went down to 20% before the war & 5% under Daesh. After the YPG liberated it some returned, but mostly, its pop doubled as so many Arabs came to live there because of its relative peace & security. The exact opposite of ethnic cleansing

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Wed 7 Feb 2018 12:41

18. this territory is actually called the “Arab belt” & some of these suspicions are based on the fact that many of the Arabs there were placed there in the ’50s & ’60s by the Syrian government as part of an ethnic cleansing of Kurds – obviously we must not know this

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Wed 7 Feb 2018 12:39

17. but again, the whole piece is designed to subtly undercut this experiment while seeming fair-minded & even-handed. Consider then the next paragraph: https://t.co/BGIiSb8xyd

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Wed 7 Feb 2018 12:38

16. one might imagine a “left” commentator on the region might find this fact, & the experiments with direct democracy, worthy of at least remark – especially as this experiment w women’s empowerment is being attacked by overt patriarchal Islamists partly, for that very reason

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Wed 7 Feb 2018 12:36

15. obviously that would make Afrin look too good. He also doesn’t want us to know other things, like the fact that 2/3 of all office-holders there are women. In fact Rojava & Afrin are conducting the most radical experiment in women’s empowerment, perhaps, in history.

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Wed 7 Feb 2018 12:35

14. largely because of an influx of refugees, since Afrin was an island of peace in Syria. Most of these refugees were not Kurdish but were taken in, helped & sheltered despite an almost complete lack of foreign aid. Cole doesn’t want us to know this.

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Wed 7 Feb 2018 12:33

13. … and actively supporting ISIL in a dozen different ways. “There are 500,000 Kurds in the Afrin canton, … Many of these Kurds have crowded into Afrin city itself, more than doubling the city’s pre-war population.” This is subtle. In fact the pop of Afrin has doubled

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Wed 7 Feb 2018 12:31

12. ?… few bombing raids against it, Ankara has tended to see ISIL as way to weaken the Syrian government of Bashar al-Assad, whom Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan wants to overthrow.” Seems critical of Turkey. Unless you know of the massive evidence Turkey was trading with …

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Wed 7 Feb 2018 12:30

11 so far, then, Cole is just following the Turkish propaganda line in a purportedly even-handed neutral fashion. He then notes “The YPG has been the main effective ground force fighting Daesh/ISIL in E’rn Syria, a task Turkey largely declined to take on. Despite conducting …”

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Wed 7 Feb 2018 12:28

10 … for the SDF to send any US armed forces to defend it. This is key for him to work in because the Turkish propaganda line is that the SDF is using sophisticated US ATGMs against its tanks – even though they’re clearly captured Russian ATGMs

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Wed 7 Feb 2018 12:27

9. he then says “the US had pledged the Kurdish forces it is arming and training would only be deployed against ISIL…, never against Turkey itself.” Thus implying that even if Turkey invaded & threatened to ethnically cleanse the same people elsewhere, it would be wrong …

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Wed 7 Feb 2018 12:25

8. so their new line is that a lot of the casualties are not civilians but militia in civilian clothing. They’ve been using images of some marchers in rallies carrying guns to make the point, & Cole is here giving them subtle support in any such claims

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Wed 7 Feb 2018 12:23

7. he does, however, work in “It is alleged that some of these arriving Kurds are YPG militiamen.” Who alleges this? Well, actually, Turkish propagandists. Why? Because the hundreds of civilian casualties of their constant bombardments of cities & towns are starting to look bad

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