SYRIA AND THE KURDS

THE ABSURD TIMES

I;;ustration: Since a lot of religion gets mssed into these issues, here is the Christian side, by Redd Foxx.

Syria, the World, and the Kurds

By

Czar Donic

I'll start out with letting all the hyperemotional Kurd lovers a note of equal time.  At the bottom of this is a long interview illustrating how poorly the Kurds have been treated over time and how we should weep for them.  OK?  So, scroll down and weep and feel good about yourselves.  I want to talk about what is really going on.

First off, Assad bears a great deal of the blame for being too much of a nice guy.  Let me tell you a little bit about Homs, or Homa, or whatever.  Assad's Dad ran the country for a long time until the Moslem Brotherhood tried to overthrow him.  Here is what happened:  "In response to an attempted uprising by the brotherhood in February 1982, the government crushed the fundamentalist opposition centered in the city of Hama, leveling parts of the city with artillery fire and causing many thousands of dead and wounded. During the rest of Hafez al-Assad's reign, public manifestations of anti-government activity were very limited."  (I just stole that to avoid having to type it out again.  If you know about Syria, you know it's true.  If you don't, trust me. In other words, he stopped the crap in one month and that was that.  He also helped stop a civil war in Lebanon and many other things.

So, he dies (as people do).  His first son is supposed to take over and he was trained for the job and ready.  He dies (as people do).  The lines keep going until Hafaez (the current one) winds up in charge.  Now this guy, who was an eye doctor in England, a good one, and doing well.  That's all he really wanted to be.  Well, he winds up in charge and has to move there with his British wife.  The last thing on his mind was running Syria on the Border with Israel and so forth.  His assessment of Endogen of Turkey, live on the BBC-TV, was that he "wants to be an Emperor."  In other words, he wanted to go back to the old Ottoman Empire.  (Forget I brought that up – we don't have time for it now.) 

So, during the so-called "Arab Spring," which the U.S., Hillary was a major force, this turned into a major campaign of "Regime Change."  Sisi, the guy we have in charge, was trained by us (so was Morsi).  Anyway, back to Homs:  this time it is some group calling itself "democratic" and then the "Free Syrian Army" starts to cause trouble.  Instead of bombing the crap out of them, Assad starts to negotiate and try to get along.  Then comes ISIS (trained by us, the leader was a graduate of Abu Gharab (once a College of Agriculture under Saddam), ISIS starts to take over the Mideast.  It's a bunch of weird, nutty fanatics.  They slice people heads off, auction off girls and women to each other and so on.  Bashir just wanted to be a damn eye doctor!  So now, he starts to get pissed.  We join in, Russia joins in, Nato joins in, Turkey joins in, and the Kurds join in.

Well, now it's time to remind you of something that sound a bit out of context.  Remember the "Pirates off of Somalia?"  The Blackhawk down, and so on?  Why do you suppose that stopped?  Well, these pirates kept stopping ships and getting ransom, one after another, until they made the mistake of capturing a Russian ship.  Putin blew the whole dam thing up in the water, and we never heard about another pirate at all (except for Hollywood movies).  Well, that's what they should have done in Syria.  We would never have had the problem in the first place. 

Ok, so now they go on with the ISIS part of this.  Everyone hates ISIS.  The Kurds were supposed to get their own homeland as the west divided up the Mideast after WWI and gave a large chunk of the Ottoman Empire to them.  (The Russians had already made their own deal.)  Trouble is, we ignored the problem when Turkey decided to keep that chunk.  The only country to give them any autonomy was Iraq under Saddam Hussein, limited Autonomy, and they just kept wanting more, and more.  Iran said "no way."  Sure Saddam gassed them.  Is that any worse than what turkey is doing and what we did in leaving them there?  The truth is, no country wants them.  The only reason they fought ISIS was that they thought they would get a chunk of Northern Syria as a result.  We see what happened as a result.  So, there it is.

Now, here are the Kurds talking, openly, plenty of freedom to present their opinion, as Amy can always be counted on doing for anybody:

The Kurdish side:

Turkey has launched an aerial and ground assault on northern Syria targeting Kurdish-controlled areas. The offensive began Wednesday, just days after President Trump ordered U.S. troops to fall back from their positions on the Turkish-Syrian border. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reports at least 16 Kurds have been killed so far. Turkey is claiming the death toll is far higher. The Trump administration has faced widespread criticism from both Republican and Democratic lawmakers for abandoning the stateless Kurds who had helped the U.S. fight ISIS. Turkey is claiming the assault is needed to establish a "safe zone" in northern Syria where Turkey could relocate Syrian refugees who fled over the past eight years of fighting, but the Kurds see the offensive as part of a decades-long attack by Turkey to crush their attempts at greater autonomy. The Kurds have been responsible for holding over 10,000 ISIS fighters and their families in detention. While Trump has claimed Turkey will take control of the makeshift jails, there is growing concern many former ISIS fighters will be able to escape during the Turkish assault. At least one Kurdish prison has already been shelled. To discuss the implications of Turkey's assault, we speak with Elif Sarican, a Kurdish Women's Movement activist and anthropologist at the London School of Economics. We also speak with Ertuğrul Kürkçü, honorary chair of the pro-Kurdish Peoples' Democratic Party in Turkey, known as the HDP. He is a former member of Parliament in Turkey.

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Transcript

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: Turkey has launched an aerial and ground assault on northern Syria targeting Kurdish-controlled areas. The offensive began Wednesday, just days after President Trump ordered U.S. troops to fall back from their positions on the Turkish-Syrian border. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reports at least 16 Kurds have been killed so far. Turkey is claiming the death toll is far higher. Some of the heaviest fighting has been in the Syrian town of Tel Abyad. Turkish jets and artillery have reportedly hit at least 81 targets east of the Euphrates River.

The Trump administration has faced widespread criticism from both Republican and Democratic lawmakers for abandoning the stateless Kurds who had helped the U.S. fight ISIS. Turkey is claiming the assault is needed to establish a, quote, "safe zone" in northern Syria where Turkey could relocate Syrian refugees who fled over the past eight years of fighting. But the Kurds see the offensive as part of a decades-long attack by Turkey to crush their attempts at greater autonomy.

AMY GOODMAN: Fear is also growing that the Turkish assault could lead to the mass release of ISIS fighters. Up until now, the Kurds have been responsible for holding over 10,000 ISIS fighters and their families in detention. While President Trump has claimed Turkey will take control of the makeshift jails, there's growing concern many former ISIS fighters will be able to escape during the Turkish assault. At least one Kurdish prison has already been shelled. The New York Times is reporting the U.S. military has moved as many as several dozen Islamic State prisoners to more secure locations. This includes two British members of ISIS who are accused of beheading Western hostages, including the journalists James Foley and Steven Sotloff.

The Turkey assault is facing international condemnation. The U.N. Security Council is expected to meet later today. The European Union has warned Turkey's hostilities would, quote, "further undermine the stability of the whole region." Earlier today, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has threatened to send millions of Syrian refugees to Europe if Turkey's assault is criticized.

PRESIDENT RECEP TAYYIP ERDOĞAN: [translated] Hey, European Union, pull yourself together. I say it again. If you try to label this operation as an invasion, it's very simple: We will open the gates and send 3.6 million refugees your way.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: On Wednesday, President Trump described Turkey's assault as a "bad idea" but defended his decision to shift U.S. troops away from the Syrian-Turkish border.

Here in New York, protesters demonstrated on Wednesday in front of the offices of Democratic Senators Chuck Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand in New York City, demanding the U.S. defend the Kurdish autonomous region known as Rojava. This is Ozlem Goner, an assistant professor of sociology and anthropology at CUNY, the City University of New York.

OZLEM GONER: Kurds have lost thousands, tens of thousands of lives, their homes, their lands, their agricultural production — so, all their livelihood — in order to defeat ISIS so that European and U.S. citizens are comfortable in their homes. And now they are once again paying with their lives for having protected our lives.

AMY GOODMAN: We're starting right now with two guests. In London, we're joined by Elif Sarican, a Kurdish Women's Movement activist. She's an anthropologist at the London School of Economics. In Brussels, Belgium, we're joined by Ertuğrul Kürkçü, the honorary chair of the pro-Kurdish Peoples' Democratic Party, known as the HDP. He's a former member of Parliament in Turkey.

We welcome you both to Democracy Now! Elif Sarican, let's begin with you. Let's start at the beginning, what we understand and what you understand is happening on the ground now. You have this conversation last Sunday between President Trump and the Turkish President Erdoğan, and apparently Trump tells him the U.S. will pull troops back in northern Syria, and Erdoğan makes very clear he is going to attack this area with Turkish troops. Explain what has happened since.

ELIF SARICAN: I mean, just to give it some context, you know, this is not a new development. Erdoğan has been trying to push for this for many months, if not years. And finally, somehow, through quite a mysterious and unclear phone conversation, Trump agreed to withdraw the few U.S. soldiers that were positioned there. And just to make clear that the U.S. Army, the U.S., Trump himself, the Syrian Democratic Forces and Turkey were well aware that these troops still remained posted there essentially to act as human shields to stop a Turkish invasion.

Now, what we saw yesterday was the beginning of this invasion, the long-promised invasion by Turkish President Erdoğan. And, you know, as many people have said, as there's a consensus all around the world and with public opinion, is the consequences of this can be grave and will be grave. It's not only that it's essentially threatening a Kurdish genocide; it will — it's not even just a possibility, it will — create and cause the resurgence of ISIS. It will add to the international refugee crisis. But also, equally as importantly, it will crush the democratic, ecological and women's liberationist experiment that has been happening there, as well as the Kurds fighting against ISIS.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: Well, Elif, the situation is quite extraordinary. A U.S.-NATO ally, Turkey, is relentlessly attacking, with U.S.-made arms and ammunition, a U.S. ally, the SDF, the Syrian Democratic Forces, who were also trained and armed by the U.S. Now, what do you understand is happening today? In these last two days, what do we know about casualties, both civilian, Kurdish civilian casualties, as well as casualties among the SDF?

ELIF SARICAN: So, because the situation is unfolding so quickly, it's quite difficult to get any precise figures at this moment, but some of the official figures that we've had in the last 24 hours is that there's over 10 civilians that have been killed, there's at least 15 injured civilians. And also CNN reported Clarissa Ward was going through part of the region yesterday and reported quite horrific scenes of civilians killed but left on the street, because people can't get to them because the shelling is so intense. And in terms of the SDF, again, we don't know the exact figures. We know there's clashes, with the six coordinated attacks in six border areas of northern Syria, and the Turkish Army with its allied jihadi forces don't seem to want to stop, by any means.

AMY GOODMAN: I wanted to bring Ertuğrul Kürkçü into the conversation and get your response to what President Trump is now just saying. Kurdish forces have fought alongside the U.S. against ISIS for nearly half a decade, nearly 11,000 fighters dead. On Wednesday, Trump criticized the Kurds, saying they didn't help the United States during the battle of Normandy in World War II. This is Trump speaking to reporters at the White House during an event in the Roosevelt Room.

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Now the Kurds are fighting for their land, just so you understand. They're fighting for their land. And as somebody wrote in a very, very powerful article today, they didn't help us in the Second World War. They didn't help us with Normandy, as an example. They mention names of different battles.

AMY GOODMAN: And he also said — The Washington Post is reporting the U.S. military has no plans to intervene if Syrian Kurdish forces leave their posts guarding ISIS prisons, raising the question of what will happen to the 11,000 ISIS militants and their families currently detained in some 20 prisons and camps under Kurdish control. So the president, Trump, was asked about this Wednesday.

REPORTER: ISIS fighters escape and pose a threat elsewhere.

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Well, they're going to be escaping to Europe. That's where they want to go. They want to go back to their homes, but Europe didn't want them, for months.

AMY GOODMAN: Ertuğrul Kürkçü, you're honorary chair of the pro-Kurdish Peoples' Democratic Party. If you could respond to both of these points, that the Kurds didn't help the U.S. at Normandy in World War II and if the ISIS prisoners get freed, they can — they will go to Europe?

ERTUĞRUL KÜRKÇÜ: Yeah, this is horrific, not only for the Kurds, but for all the world and for the Americans themselves, that they are governed by the most ignorant person in the world as a statesman. He doesn't even know that the Kurds didn't have a stake: They were not a party to the Second World War. They were enslaved by four different countries in the Middle East. And he is now speaking about the war in Normandy and why the Kurds weren't there. So he is totally ignorant of the realities of the world order, which was based on the outcome of the Second World War.

And secondly, he has no understanding of ISIS and what it means for the civilized world and Middle East and Europe, why ISIS is a problem not only the United States or Europe, but for the United Nations. ISIS is one of the two groups — one is al-Qaeda, and the second on is ISIS — which is pinpointed by the United Nations as the terrorist organizations which could be — whom should be stopped by international cooperation. And that's why the United States is having a function in the Middle East. This was not Trump's own idea.

What I would like to say, that it was the worst idea also by the Obama administration to intervene in the Middle East affairs, to export regime change in Syria, which deeply changed all the course of things in the Middle East and in Syria. And at the middle of the road, the Obama administration changed their course and took the ISIS as the enemy number one. This was a better understanding of the course of things.

But Trump doesn't understand why this was an immense problem for the American interests, as well as the Syrian interests and as well as the Kurdish interests. So, it's a pity that the United States and the world is now — is between the lips of an ignorant and a reckless person who is the leader of the United States, the number one country in the world, which assumes huge responsibilities for the peace in the world, for the stability in the region, and therefore a world where people will have to live in reconciliation. So, now Donald Trump himself may be the biggest problem for the Middle East peace.

AMY GOODMAN: And his response, what will happen to ISIS prisoners that escape from prisons, that they'll simply go to Europe?

ERTUĞRUL KÜRKÇÜ: Actually, the real situation in the field is even more problematic than Donald Trump believes to be. They are not only going to escape to Europe; they are going to operate in Turkey. And until this day, during ISIS massacres, around 200 Turkish people, 99% of whom are government dissidents, have been killed. And today, in a very interesting statement, the Turkish minister of domestic affairs, or the interior minister, in response to a question, says, "ISIS doesn't have any other opportunity than to cooperate with us, because they are at loggerheads with all the world, so they should coalesce with us." Now we have a country led by a government, an interior minister, who believes ISIS will be their ally.

So, we have done two problems. One is the Turkish official approach to ISIS, a kind of an ally against the Kurds. And the second one is that Donald Trump, that ISIS is a European problem, so that Europeans should tackle with the problem. It doesn't mean anything for Donald Trump. But he forgets 9/11, I think. They were in the United States and cost the lives of 3,000 Americans. It's a pity that, really, this guy is leading the United States. Where? Into an abyss, I see.

AMY GOODMAN: We're going to break, then come back to this discussion. Ertuğrul Kürkçü, honorary chair of the pro-Kurdish Peoples' Democratic Party, is speaking to us from Brussels, Belgium. And Elif Sarican is a Kurdish Women's Movement activist, speaking to us from London. We will also be joined by Debbie Bookchin, co-founder of the Emergency Committee for Rojava. This is Democracy Now! Back in a minute.

[break]

AMY GOODMAN: "Dear Viyan" by Miranda De La Frontera. This is Democracy Now! I'm Amy Goodman, with Nermeen Shaikh. Our guests are Ertuğrul Kürkçü, the honorary chair of the pro-Kurdish Peoples' Democratic Party, joining us from Brussels in Belgium, and Elif Sarican, a Kurdish Women's Movement activist. Also, Debbie Bookchin is with us in New York, co-founder of the Emergency Committee for Rojava.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: I'd like to ask Elif — you said earlier, of course, that there is a real risk of a Kurdish genocide, given what's happening. And it's important, I think, to remind people that over 10,000 SDF fighters have died in the fight against ISIS. And the question is: Now, given this overwhelming Turkish assault in northeast Syria, are the Kurds likely to receive any support from anybody? Some have said that they're likely to be forced to turn to Assad in an attempt to defend themselves against this assault. Could you talk about whether you think that's true and what the implications of that would be for the Kurds?

ELIF SARICAN: So, Amy [sic], as you say, there's been 11,000 people martyred in the fight against ISIS. There's 22,000 wounded in this fight, including many international volunteers, from the U.S., from the U.K., as well, and other countries included.

Now, to see what the consequences of a Turkish invasion will be, we don't have to look too far. In January 2018, the Turkish Army, again allied with ground jihadi forces, invaded Afrin, causing, in a couple of months, 1,000 — killing 1,000 people, mostly civilians, causing the displacement of 300,000 people, out of a population of 800,000, again, mostly Kurdish people. So, even at that time, and now it continues, the Syrian Democratic Council, which is the umbrella formation that also includes the Syrian Democratic Forces, have said they will negotiate, and they will sit at tables — at a table with any actor in the region to bring about a peaceful solution to the conflict and the situation of the region and, you know, the effects of it on the wider Middle East and also the world.

So, this does bring the question of the ultimate aim of all of this needs to be, of course, as we said, the U.S. was — the U.S. soldiers were acting as human shields, essentially, but, you know, that was always going to be a solution that expired. So, the solution must be that — and, you know, the recognition is that this is, in some ways, less about the U.S., but more about the Turkish invasion, if that makes sense. So, therefore, the solution must be, you know, whether it's including Syria, as well, and Russia and the U.S. and all of the actors in the region, including Turkey, too — why not? — to be able to come to a political, diplomatic and peaceful solution to the future of the people of Syria, in general, which means the Syrian Democratic Council being included in the rewriting of the Syrian constitution, and being included in political developments of the region, as well.

And this is one of the reasons why the situation has got to where it has got to today, because there was a tactical alliance between the U.S. and the Syrian Democratic Forces in the fight against ISIS, but strategically there was never any political alliances. And this is what needs to be developed right now, because the question isn't — I don't think the question should be whether U.S. soldiers should return there or not. Of course, as a short-term solution, that would solve — you know, solve the or push back the invasion, and therefore save the lives of millions of people. But ultimately there needs to be a political solution, and that's what the people of northern Syria and the Syrian Democratic Council have been continuing to call for.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: Well, Elif, as you know, one of the principal objectives that Erdoğan has said for the military invasion is creating a safe zone to which millions of Syrian refugees can be returned. But there have been numerous reports of Turkey recently violently deporting thousands of Syrian refugee men and boys back to Syria. Turkish border guards have reportedly shot and killed Syrians when they tried returning to Turkey to reunite with their families. Now, you've spent time talking to Syrian refugees who have attempted to flee through Turkey. What did the Syrian refugees tell you about how they've been treated by Turkey?

ELIF SARICAN: So, I was in a refugee camp in Greece in 2016, and I spent a short time with them and, you know, talking with them, discussing with them. Most of them, at this camp, happened to be Kurdish, but there was also Syrian Arabs and other peoples at this camp, as well. And it was a — you know, it was almost every single person we spoke to, spoke about the brutality of the Turkish authorities at the border of when they were trying to cross, the extortion of these people, making — you know, confiscating their belongings, their goods. If they had any gold or money on them to, obviously, try and live and look after their families, a lot of the time these were confiscated. They reported things like doing work for — working at some of these — trying to work at local places, and because there was no protection, their wages not being paid. And, you know, so, therefore, shooting refugees trying to flee into Turkey in the first place is not a new thing. Now the forcing of Syrian refugees back into Syria, again, almost entirely, is not a voluntary move.

So, Erdoğan declaring at the General Assembly of the United Nations on the 24th of September, with a map, essentially declaring that he was going to alter the demographic of this region and, quote-unquote, "settle" his Syrian brothers and sisters in this region, is absolutely unprecedented, because often world leaders do not declare beforehand that they're about to commit war crimes. You know, firstly, an unprovoked attack is, obviously, by definition, by the U.N. and Nuremberg principle, a war crime. But also, to force the movement of people involuntarily and also to alter the demographic of a region is, again, by definition, ethnic cleansing. And Erdoğan declared all of this publicly at the United Nations a few weeks ago. But for some reason, he can do it and get away with it, which, to us on the receiving end, seems bizarre. But it also seems like he's very, very good, as you've already mentioned today, at blackmailing Europe with the 3.5 million Syrian refugees that he holds in Turkey — unfortunately, in very bad conditions. But nonetheless they're there, and he's somehow preventing them from getting to Europe.

AMY GOODMAN: I also want to bring —

ELIF SARICAN: But it's also —

As Turkey launches an aerial and ground assault on northern Syria targeting Kurdish-controlled areas, we look at how the offensive threatens the Kurdish region of Rojava with Debbie Bookchin, co-founder of the Emergency Committee for Rojava. She is a journalist and author who co-edited a book of essays by her father, Murray Bookchin, "The Next Revolution: Popular Assemblies and the Promise of Direct Democracy." We also speak with Elif Sarican, a Kurdish Women's Movement activist and anthropologist at the London School of Economics, and Ertuğrul Kürkçü, honorary chair of the pro-Kurdish Peoples' Democratic Party in Turkey, known as the HDP. He is a former member of Parliament in Turkey.

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Transcript

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.

AMY GOODMAN: I wanted to bring into this conversation Debbie Bookchin, co-founder of the Emergency Committee for Rojava. Her father, the late political philosopher Murray Bookchin, helped to inspire the Kurdish movement in Rojava. She just returned from there a few months ago and wrote a piece for The New York Review of Books titled "What the West Owes Its Best Ally Against ISIS." There are many who have not heard of Rojava, Debbie. If you can explain what it is and its significance today in what's happening just this week?

DEBBIE BOOKCHIN: That's right. Thank you, Amy. You know, one of the things that we focus on is ISIS, which has obviously been a critically important part of the United States' relationship with the Kurds. But in addition to discussing what the Kurds have been fighting against, it's incredibly and critically important, and especially to the progressive community in the American left, to talk about what they are fighting for. And that is a society that is really unparalleled right now in the 21st century. It is a society that is focused on the ideals of grassroots democracy, feminism and ecology. And —

AMY GOODMAN: And explain exactly where Rojava is.

DEBBIE BOOKCHIN: Well, Rojava is along the northern third of Syria. It is now — the Kurds are really helping [inaudible] a huge land mass, basically a third of Syria, which is another reason why it's absurd that they are not being included as part of the negotiations on the future of Syria.

But I think what's critically important — and I am very proud of the fact that a lot of my father's ideas have influenced the Rojavan society. What is critically important is that they are saying that we have to create a society that truly empowers people at the local level. And that means, especially in the Middle East, a feminist society. And I was just there, and I had the opportunity to talk to many people. And if you look at what they are doing there, and if you look at, for example, the social contract, which is their equivalent of our Constitution, it enshrines the rights of women, in a way that puts our Constitution to shame, frankly. So, really, we're talking about a very progressive society. And I think anybody in the United States, anywhere in the world, who considers themselves a progressive or a feminist should be very strongly behind the Rojava project. So, that's one very, very important aspect of it.

And I think that the other thing that I just want to emphasize is that, you know, there are not only 10,000 or 12,000 ISIS prisoners, but there are also 100,000 families that are now being held in camps. And many of these women — there's many children, of course, as well — but many of them, especially the ones who streamed out of Baghouz near the end of the so-called caliphate, the defeat of the caliphate, are very hardcore, serious jihadists. So, for Trump to say that this is not going to be a problem for us is an absurd thing to say. And you can imagine that they're jumping for joy right now. But I think it's really very — it is very important.

And I would actually like to say that, you know, I think that it's, in a certain sense, to the enduring shame of the progressive community in the American left that there hasn't been more support for Rojava over the years. We haven't heard our Democratic candidates really even talk about Syria. And this is a — and part of the reason that this can be happening, especially after what we saw in Afrin, where the [Turkish] Army — and it's really mostly a jihadi militia that the [Turks] have employed, because, as you know, after the coup attempt, Erdoğan got rid of a good chunk of his Army. So, you have essentially thugs who have come in and taken this once-peaceful region of Rojava called Afrin and turned it into basically an extension of a Turkish Islamic State, in which they've taken away people's rights, in which they've looted, robbed, kidnapped people. And this is what we can look forward to. This is what's going to happen in the rest of Rojava. And it is truly incumbent on all of us who claim to care for progressive values to stand up, to demand a no-fly zone for Rojava, to go to our representatives and say, "You know what? Tweeting your crocodile tears is not enough. We have to actually become active." And the progressive left should really play a huge role in this. It is not something that we should cede to the Republicans.

AMY GOODMAN: I wanted to bring Ertuğrul Kürkçü back into the conversation in Brussels and ask you to respond to what Debbie is saying, but also to talk about the significance of the military that is now invading Syria. We're talking about the second-largest army in NATO?

ERTUĞRUL KÜRKÇÜ: Actually, this is the exact example of what an unjust war is. It has no legal basis. It has no legitimate basis for Turkey's security. It has no aim of bringing peace to any part of the world. But it is just designed for Tayyip Erdoğan's domestic ambitions of crowning his presidency with a military victory against a people which comprises only one of the hundred of its, Turkey's, population, which doesn't have an army as such, but armed citizens.

And Turkey is now seeking to suppress their gains from the Syrian administration for self-governance. Their sin is to self-govern themselves, which is a must in any modern society, across Europe, in the United States, even in the Middle East. So, now Kurds are being punished because they are becoming a bad example for the northern Kurds — that is, the Turkish citizens.

The outcome of this war, when looking at the balance of the weapons, the armament balance, Kurds may be in a bad position. But when looking at the matter from the legitimacy of the cause, it is obvious that Turkey has lost the war from the start. And not even an international organization, not a serious government across the globe is for Turkey's crackdown on Kurds in Syria. And all the peoples of the world are for the Kurds' right to determine their future. So, in the long term — maybe the Kurds, in the short term, may be inflicted casualties, but in the long term they are going to gain not only the hearts, but also the minds of the peoples of the world, because they present the only viable outcome of the Syrian war: a democratic country with self-governance for every entity in Syria.

And this will be understood, whatever the Turkish government's propaganda machine would say. They are called "terrorists." Imagine, in Turkey, there are at least 50,000 terrorists in prison. Everybody against Tayyip Erdoğan is a terrorist. Even the main opposition party is a terrorist party. But this party, tragically, said yes to a Turkish incursion into Syria. They are both crying for the losses but also supporting the war efforts of the Turkish government. It is just like the German parliament which started the First World War in 1914.

So, I would like to say that, even now, at the beginning of this Turkish incursion in the Kurdish-controlled areas, there will be no support, no empathy with the Turkish government for occupying this land. And if the international community understands, comes to the support of a nation which has the right to rule themselves, anywhere in the world, then the outcome of the war may change. All unjust wars have been lost by their perpetrators. And this is going to be lost also. But this is going to cost the Turkish people economic assets —

NERMEEN SHAIKH: I'd like to go — Ertuğrul, we'd like to go back for a second to Elif Sarican.

ERTUĞRUL KÜRKÇÜ: OK.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: If you could talk, Elif, about what you expect to happen now? How long do you expect this Turkish offensive to continue?

ELIF SARICAN: I mean, if Turkey gets its way, if the Turkish Army and Erdoğan gets its way, it will continue until they have genuinely achieved the genocide of the people of northern Syria, northeast Syria.

But, of course, a lot of this is dependent on the international community, as well, and actually even more importantly the international community. You know, we've seen that the public opinion is deeply and quite aggressively opposed to this invasion. We've seen a lot of people, you know, very, very close aides of Trump, come out very strongly to this, including the sanctions bill that has been put together. We've seen a lot of important academics, like David Harvey, pull out from conferences in Turkey, and celebrities, like Cher, who have come out with this.

So, this kind of solidarity and this kind of public outrage is genuinely important, because the lives of 5 million people are in question, including almost 3 million Kurds, but also not just Kurds, right? It's Arabs. It's Assyrians. It's Turkmen. It's a lot of other Christian groups. It's Yazidis. So there's many people, many marginalized — historically marginalized communities that are at risk here, because the Turkish Army just are not making distinctions. You know, yesterday, an Armenian village was also bombed, including other Christian neighborhoods, as well. So, this is an all-out war against the people of northern Syria. But as Debbie mentioned, as well, and Ertuğrul Kürkçü, this is against and aims to crush the beacon of hope that is the system based on direct democracy, ecology and women's liberation.

So, I think what's important is that people — you know, a lot of people want to do things, but they don't know exactly how to. It's important to encourage people to academically, culturally, touristically boycott Turkey at this point and make sure that if there is an international power or a state that is not willing to stop this Turkish invasion, that the people of the world, that we'll come together and make sure that they definitely pay for it.

AMY GOODMAN: We want to thank all our guests and also end with The Washington Post report. The Washington Post ran a piece earlier this week headlined "Trump's decision on Syria crystallizes questions about his business — and his presidency." The article notes Trump himself has acknowledged his conflict of interest with Turkey. Even after Trump became president, Trump Towers Istanbul remained part of the Trump Organization and continued to generate revenue for Trump himself.

We'll leave it there, Elif Sarican, Kurdish Women's Movement activist, speaking to us from London; Ertuğrul Kürkçü, honorary chair, pro-Kurdish Peoples' Democratic Party, speaking to us from Brussels, Belgium; and Debbie Bookchin, co-founder of the Emergency Committee for Rojava.

The original content of this program is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License. Please attribute legal copies of this work to democracynow.org. Some of the work(s) that this program incorporates, however, may be separately licensed. For further information or additional permissions, contact us.

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Bombing in Mideast

THE ABSURD TIMES

Remember him?

HISTORY IS DEAD

As Zarathustra climbed down the mountain, he asked himself "Has the Historian not yet heard – that history is dead?"

We tend to forget that 9/11 was exploited first to supposedly hunt down bin Laden.  A real objective was hidden for while – a way to effect regime change by eliminating Saddam Hussein.  The details are too numerous to list, but it is clear that Saddam (intentionally mispronounced "Sodom" by George Jr.) had made the mistake of providing a good example to other leaders in the Middle East.  He was, of course, constantly vilified by both Georgie Bush and Bin Laden as he was a benefactor of many individuals in many countries, especially Palestinian families. 

What we now call ISIS comes out of that adventure.  Al-Bagdadi was a graduate of the Abu Garib prison we maintained using the methods of Guantanimo.   He was considered a model and given special privileges.  While there is much to lament about the activities of ISIS, in fact to detest, Israel has benefited greatly by taking attention away from its systematic exploitation of what little remains of Palestine.  When is the last time you have seen coverage of that?  It enabled the change in Libya that brought such great benefit of Europe is the form of refugees.  We attempted the same in Syria, but forgot that Russia had two bases there on the Mediterranean and that Russia had been invited by Assad (we were not) and Russia does not give up bases. 

Now we talk about our talk of routing ISIS.  Here is an interview that tells a more accurate story of what we have been doing over there recently: 

Today we spend the hour looking at a damning new report that reveals how U.S.-led airstrikes against Islamic State militants in Iraq have killed far more civilians than officials have acknowledged. An on-the-ground investigation by the New York Times Magazine titled "The Uncounted" found the actual civilian death toll may be 31 times higher than U.S. officials admit. We interview one of the survivors featured in the report. Joining us from Erbil, Iraq, Basim Razzo describes the 2015 U.S. airstrike on his home in Mosul, in which his wife, daughter, brother and nephew were killed. Video of the strike on his home shows a target hit with military precision.

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Transcript

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.

AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, Democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I'm Amy Goodman.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And I'm Juan González. Welcome to all of our listeners and viewers around the country and around the world. Today we spend the hour looking at a damning new report that reveals how U.S.-led airstrikes against Islamic State militants in Iraq have killed far more civilians than officials have acknowledged.

found the actual rate of civilian deaths may be 31 times higher than the U.S. is admitting. In fact, The Pentagon claims its air war against the self-proclaimed Islamic State has killed few civilians. But an on-the-ground investigation by The New York Times has revealed the U.S.-led military coalition is killing far more civilians in Iraq than it has acknowledged. The Pentagon claims just 89 of its airstrikes have killed civilians since 2014. But the Times the report reveals that as many as one in five coalition airstrikes on ISIS targets in Iraq resulted in civilian deaths.

The reporters write, "In terms of civilian deaths, this may be the least transparent war in recent American history." The investigation comes as U.S. military officials continue to insist coalition bombing in Iraq has been precise in hitting its targets. This is Army Lieutenant General Stephen J. Townsend.

ARMY LIEUTENANT GENERAL STEPHEN J. TOWNSEND: I reject any notion that coalition fires were in any way imprecise, unlawful, or excessively targeted civilians. I would argue that this is, I believe, the most precise campaign in the history of warfare, and we have gone to extraordinary measures to safeguard civilian lives.

AMY GOODMAN: But The New York Times investigation reveals many of the American-led airstrikes against Islamic State militants actually killed civilians. One of the survivors they interviewed, Basim Razzo, described a coalition airstrike on his home in Mosul, Iraq, in 2015 in which his wife, daughter, brother, and nephew were killed. Video of the strike on his home shows a target hit with military precision.

Well, today we are joined by that man, Basim Razzo. He's joining us from Erbil, Iraq, via Democracy Now! video stream. We're also joined in studio, here in New York, by the two reporters who co-authored this New York Times investigation headlined "The Uncounted."

Azmat Khan is an investigative journalist and a Future of War fellow at New America and Arizona State University, and Anand Gopal is an assistant research professor at Arizona State University and the author of No Good Men Among the Living. I want to start off in Erbil, Iraq, with Basim Razzo. Basim, that is not actually your longtime home. You lived in Mosul until 2015. Can you describe what happened on that fateful night when your home was hit by a U.S. airstrike?

BASIM RAZZO: Good morning, Amy. Thank you for having me on your program. That night, as I said in my story, I went to bed around 1:00. I had just checked my daughter to see if she was asleep, and I lied down. And then I woke up to a devastating explosion. Did not realize what had happened. I felt that I was in a nightmare, but then I felt that something had happened, because I looked up to the skies and I could see the stars.

There was a terrible smell in the air. And then I started feeling my legs, pinching myself. I thought I was in a dream or in a nightmare, but no, it was reality. I looked to the left at my wife, and all I could see was debris. And I started shouting her name—"Mayada, Mayada." She did not answer me. I started shouting at my daughter, Tuqa. No answer. And then I started shouting at my brother's house, but I could not hear a sound.

Minutes later, I could hear a sound from far away, and it seems that it was the groundkeeper that we have. His house was about 500 meters from my house. Minutes later, he started shouting at me. He said "Uncle Basim, Uncle Basim, I am coming, I am coming. But I need to get a ladder so I can climb up. Are you OK?" I said to him—his name is [inaudible]. I said [inaudible] "Please, help me. I think I am very hurt and something is broken. I cannot move."

I tried to stand up, but I fell down. I reached to my back because I felt my back was warm. And I touched my back, and then I felt something in my left arm. Something was warm. And it was blood. My back has been injured. My left foot had broken. My bed was in a v-shape, which resulted in a break to my hip. I tried to just move a little bit, but I could not move at all.

So minutes later, I could hear our groundkeeper climbing up to me. And then he came to me and he said "Are you OK? Are you OK?" I said, "I am badly hurt. What has happened to the other house?" That was my brother's house. He said "I don't know." But I could hear a female sound. And then when I started shouting at her, it was my sister-in-law, Azza. And she said "Basim, everybody's gone."

But I could not see anything. It was very dark. The bombing has damaged the electricity. The street was dark. Everything was dark. And then about half an hour later, I could see somebody was walking, entering the farm with a torch light. And they climbed up the ladder and three members of ISIS were looking down at me. So the first thing I said to them, I said, "Are you happy?"They looked at me in disgust and they left me. They climbed down the ladder and they left.

But they had called an ambulance, but they did not let the ambulance come right away.
Because usually when there is a bombing, most of the time it is followed by a second bombing, so they wanted to stay out. So they left for another like 15 minutes. And then when they could hear that the planes were out of the sky, they ordered the ambulance to enter my farm.

And they took me down, put me on the ambulance, and they rushed me to the hospital. When I reached the hospital, it was chaos. I was disoriented. I didn't know what was happening. I was in pain. And then I looked around and I could not know anybody. It was all ISIS members. But some person, he tapped on my shoulder and said, "Uncle Basim, don't worry, I know you are here, my son." He said, "I will be here for you. Don't worry. Don't worry."

So he started rushing me—he cleaned my wound in my back. They did some x-rays for me. They did a CT scan for—they were afraid that I have like brain damage or hemorrhage. Thank God, I did not have anything. They put a cast on my left foot. And then I woke up the next morning around 10:00 with my brother-in-law and another friend, and they had told me what just happened. They told me that all my member family are gone.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Basim Razzo, our deepest condolences to you and your family. You mentioned that your brother's house was next door. How many total members of the family were in both houses, and how many survived, and what kind of injuries did they have?

BASIM RAZZO: In my house, it was me, my wife, and my daughter. Two lost their life—my wife and my daughter. In my brother's house, which was about 20 feet away from my house, it was my brother, his wife, and his son. Only his wife survived. So total, four deaths, two survivals.

AMY GOODMAN: And can you describe the last day with your wife and your daughter?

BASIM RAZZO: Well, usually, before ISIS, I could come home late, like 10:00 or 11:00.
But since ISIS entered Mosul, it is better for me and more comfortable for me to be home early. I would sit with my family, sit with my brother's family, after sundown. We will go out to the farm. So it was just a regular everyday. I would come home from work around 5:00 or 6:00. I'd have dinner with them.

AMY GOODMAN: You had had a party the night before at your brother's house?

BASIM RAZZO: We had a party, like a party for women. And my daughter and my wife attended that party. And then we just have tea. And then when it's—and it is sundown, when the temperature cools down a little bit. Because you know, it was September. It is very hot in September in Iraq. So about 8:00 or 9:00, we would go out to the front yard. We would have tea, maybe some cold drinks. Maybe we will have some fruits. And then we would stay late until like 10:00 or 11:00. And that was my hours before my accident.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And your mention of the strike—how often were these airstrikes visited on Mosul or on your neighborhood in particular? Were these regular occurrences or was this an unusual occurrence in your neighborhood?

BASIM RAZZO: Well, at that time, there was not that much bombing, before the liberation of Mosul. You would hear some bombing every now and then, but it was not that often. But you could hear drones in the sky. But for bombing, it was not that often.

AMY GOODMAN: There is a picture in the New York Times investigation of your daughter Tuqa on the night before the airstrike. She's got that sparkler you describe.

BASIM RAZZO: Yes. She had found it somewhere. I think it was—I don't know if we had bought it earlier for her birthday, but it was left somewhere, and she had found it. And she lit it. And I was shouting at her because it was dangerous to light it inside. I told her, "Tuqa, honey, why don't you go outside?" She said, "No, it's not working. I think it is damaged because of the humidity, so it is not sparkling that much. So I will be safe. I'll be safe." So thank God she was safe. But she lost her life later.

AMY GOODMAN: We're going to break and then come back and hear what happened next. Has the U.S. claimed responsibility for what it did to your family? We will be joined by the two reporters who have investigated the attack on not only your home and your brother's, but so many others in Mosul, Iraq.

This is Democracy Now!, Democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report, and investigated airstrikes throughout Iraq. Please, stay with us.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: We are spending the hour looking at a New York Times investigation that reveals many of the American-led airstrikes against Islamic State militants actually killed civilians. One of the survivors the reporters interviewed, Basim Razzo, described a coalition airstrike on his home in Mosul, Iraq in 2015 in which his wife, daughter, brother, and nephew were killed. Video of the strike on his home shows a target hit with military precision.

AMY GOODMAN: Basim Razzo is just joining us, and you've heard a part of his story in our last segment as he speaks to us from Erbil, Iraq, via Democracy Now! video stream. And we're joined in our New York studio by the two reporters who co-authored the New York Times investigation headlined The Uncounted.... It was the cover of The New York Times Magazine this past Sunday.

Azmat Khan, investigative journalist and a Future of War fellow at New America and Arizona State University, and Anand Gopal, assistant research professor at Arizona State University, and the author of the book No Good Men Among the Living. Azmat Khan, talk about the U.S. figures for how many civilians have died, how many airstrikes, how many civilians killed, and then what you found.

AZMAT KHAN: So, the coalition, which is led by the United States, releases monthly civilian casualty figures. Our analysis of them shows that they have admitted to 466 Iraqi civilian deaths in 89 airstrikes. This is of more than 14,000 that they have carried out in Iraq, which is an incident rate of 0.6 percent. Less than one percent. What we found…

AMY GOODMAN: Less than 1 percent civilian killed.

AZMAT KHAN: Less than one percent, exactly—0.6 percent. What we found is that one in five airstrikes, or 31 times as high, resulted in civilian death.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And your analysis is based not obviously on all the 14,000, but you investigated about 103 separate incidents. Because 14,000 over roughly a four-year period, we're talking about 100 airstrikes a day on average that were occurring in Iraq in this war against ISIS.

AZMAT KHAN: Yeah. Many of these airstrikes took place near or around the time of liberation, but they were ongoing throughout. And so we saw an escalation around the time that Mosul or parts of Mosul were retaken. But you're basically looking at our sample, which was in East Mosul. It was in a neighborhood called Aden, a town that's—so and East Mosul is relatively an urban, densely packed neighborhood. Next, we had like a suburban municipality called Qayyarah. And after that, we had downtown Shura, which is probably a small settlement typical of many ISIS-held areas.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And in each of these 103 strikes, you actually went on the ground to interview people who were there at the time to find out what happened.

AZMAT KHAN: Exactly. So I've been to the site of every single one. We interviewed hundreds of survivors. We excavated the rubble. We looked for any presence of ISIS, whether that was in ISIS propaganda materials, weaponry. We analyzed bomb fragments. We analyzed satellite imagery before and after in order to assess the date ranges of when these airstrikes had happened. We also checked all of the civilian casualty allegations with local administrators, health officials, or law enforcement.

AMY GOODMAN: Anand Gopal, how does the U.S. military gather its numbers?

ANAND GOPAL: Most of these numbers come from internal reports by the U.S. military itself. For example, if they notice a mission irregularity, if let's say a pilot is dropping a bomb and all of the sudden a civilian vehicle appears after the bomb is dropped, they will report that to their superiors, and often times, they will investigate that.

Occasionally, they get reports from outside sources, from the media, from Airwars, which is a great organization that tracks these things. But they tend, more often than not, to actually discount those reports, and it is their own internal reports they take the most seriously, which is why the number is so low—466 civilians killed in 14,000 airstrikes.

If that was true, it would make it the most precise air war in the history of humanity. But it's because the threshold for what qualifies as evidence for being a civilian is extremely, extremely high. So in practice, people like Basim are in fact guilty until proven innocent.

AMY GOODMAN: So is Basim included in this count of civilians? Even the far lower count that the U.S. military has?

ANAND GOPAL: Well, initially, he wasn't. And a large part of our investigation was to press that point. His family members were not counted. They were listed as ISIS, basically. After the airstrike on his house, the coalition put up a video of the strike claiming that it was an IED factory, car bomb factory, essentially. And so you could have gone on YouTube and found the video of the bombing that destroyed his family for over a year.

And it was only after we found this and sort of showed this to the coalition that they kind of took it off YouTube. And eventually, after a long process of hundreds of emails and back and forth, did they admit that they killed his family and that they were civilians, and they were eventually added to the count. Today they are part of the count, but they had not been for many years.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Now, this issue of the preciseness of these strikes, which the military is always touting that they hit exactly what they're looking for—your report suggests that the problem is not so much in the munitions themselves, but in the intelligence of what are the targets that they actually strike. That it's faulty intelligence. Can you talk about that?

ANAND GOPAL: Well, that's right. And in fact, talking about precision in some ways is a slight of hand, because—and in fact, it is true they are very precise. They hit exactly what they intend to hit. The question is, what do they think they're hitting? And the intelligence is often so poor.

And again, it goes back to this issue of Iraqis having to prove that they are not ISIS, which is the opposite of what we would think. We would think that the coalition would do the work to find out whether somebody is a member of ISIS or not. Essentially, they assume people are ISIS until proven otherwise. And that's what leads to this extremely high count.

AMY GOODMAN: Basim Razzo, I wanted to go back to you. Now you are in Erbil. Your home is in Mosul. You went to Western Michigan University in Michigan, here in the United States?

BASIM RAZZO: Yes, I was at Western Michigan. I graduated in 1988 in a degree with industrial engineering—B.Sc.

AMY GOODMAN: And you traveled with your wife in a sort of love journey across the country?

BASIM RAZZO: Yeah, that was in 1982 when she joined me. We went for like a honeymoon for about 40 days around the United States in my car.

AMY GOODMAN: So you moved home to Mosul. Your family was killed in 2015. And what has been your interaction with the U.S. military?

BASIM RAZZO: Well, first, when I was in Turkey for my operation, I received a text on my Viber from the American Embassy in Baghdad saying that would like to contact me. I texted them back. I told them I was in Turkey and I will get in touch with them as soon as I am back in Baghdad. I returned late, about December. And then I texted them and then they gave me an appointment to meet with them in February. That is when I visited the American consulate in Baghdad.

And I have gathered some report. I wrote down the report. I gathered some pictures. Some aerial shots of my farm. And then I went to the embassy. I submitted the report to them. The woman who interviewed me, she told me that they would have to make sure that my allegations were right, and that they will pass my information to the DOD for verification. And then I never heard from them for like two months.

I emailed them back, and the lady said, "We still had not heard anything from them." And nothing for months until about like five or six months later, I emailed them a letter, and it was returned, saying the mailbox is full. That is when I started doubting—that something is going on. And then that's when I really met Azmat, and then things starting rolling from there.

AMY GOODMAN: The reporter who did this amazing piece, along with Anand Gopal for The New York Times. So can you describe your meeting, when you went to the U.S. Embassy in—was it Baghdad? Tell us what you were demanding and what it was that they gave you.

BASIM RAZZO: OK. When I submitted my report, she looked at it and then she went inside into a room and she came back like 15 minutes later. In my report, I had demanded that first and most important thing to me was for them to state clearly that this bombing is a mistake. This is just to clear my name, and so I can no longer be afraid to go back to Mosul. Because at that time, I was labeled as ISIS. My second demand was for them to compensate me for the losses of my family. I demanded compensation for my injury. I had lost my job because of my injury. So this was basically my demands in my report that I submitted.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And what was their response?

BASIM RAZZO: Well, it took them months and months to—if it wasn't for Azmat's pushing—and then they offered me—first they admitted that the bombing was done by mistake. But this took months and months of emails back and forth. They still have not provided me with a clear letter saying that the bombing was done by mistake.

And then they gave me an appointment to meet in Erbil, to offer me a payment they call [inaudible] payment. When I met with them at Erbil airport, this lady lawyer, she expressed her sorrow and deepest sympathy to my accident. She said, "We are sorry. We know the bombing was done by mistake."

And I, for the second time and third time, I asked her, I said, "Listen, I need an explicit letter from you saying that the bombing was done by mistake." She said, "OK, I promise I will get you this letter." And then they offered me the payment of $15,000 as a compensation for the death of my wife and my daughter, which I immediately declined. And she said "I'm sorry, sir, this is the most that we can do [and we are tapped off?]."

And then I asked her for one more request. My farm has been ransacked by government officials. I cannot say who because there were so many government agencies that entered Mosul and liberated Mosul, being the Army, the federal units, the Hashd. I don't know. But they entered my farm and they have ransacked it and have stolen so many things. And I said, "Listen, lady, I need you to help me get the word to whoever is in charge of that area that stop anybody from entering the premises."

And she also promised she will get in touch through the American forces with the local commanders to stop anybody from entering. But this has not happened. Actually, until about three weeks ago, they have entered the premises again and they have stolen more material from storage that we have. So they have not offered me anything until now.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: I wanted to ask Azmat Khan—this is a family that is a professional family, well educated, was relatively middle-class. And there are many others who are victims who are not so fortunate and don't have the ability to really confront the coalition. You talk about one case in April of 2015 where 18 civilians were killed and where the coalition is still saying there's insufficient evidence that any civilians were killed in that attack. What is happening with all of these other cases?

AZMAT KHAN: Right. That particular incident was an electrical substation in East Mosul, for which there was ample evidence of online. When I went on the ground and interviewed people, dozens of people, they said, "Just go online. You'll find the videos." And I did.

They showed children who were maimed and hurt. Some of their legs were blown off.

These young, young children, boys and girls—there is no doubt about whether or not they are civilians. And so this was readily available to the coalition, but in the coalition's own assessment of this incident, they concluded there was insufficient evidence.

Now, to speak to this excellent point about how so many survivors that I have met really don't have the resources or access or networks in the way that Basim did, to, for example, arrange an appointment at the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad, what I found repeatedly were people who couldn't even afford to rebuild their homes. Some people who couldn't afford to even seek necessary medical treatment.

One family in Mosul had three injured. They lost eight individuals in an airstrike last November in East Mosul. What they told me was that "we are still injured." And the women took me to a room in the back and one woman revealed her headscarf and pulled open a cap and you could actually see the skull on her—you could see the skull visible from the top. Another woman, her hand…

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: She had had no medical treatment since…

AZMAT KHAN: She had had no medical treatment. They needed really expensive surgeries. And ultimately what we did is we provided all of the coordinates of these airstrikes to both the coalition and to the U.S. Air Force after we had visited the base in Qatar, where many of these aircraft take off from. What they told us in the case of, for example, the incident I just described to you with these injured women who could not afford medical treatment, was in that case, they had conducted an airstrike just meters away on that day.

So this is very likely a coalition airstrike.

And these individuals, who often don't even have cell phones that are working all of the time, have very little means and access. And we have now turned over all of those allegations that were close to where the coalition reported coordinates to us. And we are waiting to hear a response to them about whether or not they are even going to investigate them.

AMY GOODMAN: And Azmat, when Basim went to the U.S. lawyer and he laid out all he had lost—this is outside of the agony of the loss of his family—his wife and daughter, his nephew, deeply close to him, and his brother next door—talked about what the houses were worth. He owns a downtown building in Mosul, said something like $500,000. And then they said altogether, $15,000 if he signs on the dotted line. How common is this? I mean, he is talking about, even this wouldn't have happened—though he has not gotten a letter that he is not part of ISIS, even if they say it to him privately. How typical is this?

AZMAT KHAN: So this is one of two condolence payment offers that have been offered in this entire anti-ISIS air war. So since August 2014, and some 27,000 airstrikes in both Iraq and Syria, this is one of two offers. This is the only offer that was made for a civilian death. The other offer that was made was for damage to a car in a separate airstrike, but not for a civilian. And so Basim has…

AMY GOODMAN: How much has been allocated?

AZMAT KHAN: So, every year, for the last two years, Congress has authorized $5 million dollars in funds to be used for payments like these. There have only been two offers made.

Basim is the only offer for a civilian death that has been made during that time. And in this case, the $15,000, just to give you a sense, it was his wife and daughter only—that is even higher than what they ordinarily offer, which is usually capped at $2,500 per death.

AMY GOODMAN: Did it have something to do with you being there?

AZMAT KHAN: Anand was actually in the meeting with them.

AMY GOODMAN: Anand, describe that meeting and your participation in it.

ANAND GOPAL: Yeah. I went with Basim to the meeting at the Erbil airport, and we didn't exactly know how much they would offer, although we expected that it's not going to be high. And in the meeting, the JAG officials explained that the offer they were going to make wasn't an offer of compensation, but of condolence.

And it was an important difference, because the U.S. military is not in the business of compensating civilians who have lost things. Because of course, the problem is, from their perspective, if they feel that they start compensating people for what they have lost, then they're going to start having to pay out hundreds of millions of dollars, and it would impede their very ability to wage a war. So instead, it is an offer of condolence, ultimately with the idea of not having Iraqis upset at them. That's the purpose here.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And what has been the reaction by the U.S. military, by the coalition, since your article came out?

ANAND GOPAL: Well, almost nothing, actually. We have been waiting to hear something from them. We gave them all of our essential findings way before the article was published—three or four weeks before—and asked them for comment on each specific individual allegation that was made in the piece. And we haven't heard a thing.

AMY GOODMAN: We're going to break and then come back to this discussion. Our guests are Azmat Khan and Anand Gopal, co-authors of The New York Times Magazinecover story called, The Uncounted. Basim Razzo is joining us from Erbil, Iraq, who lost his wife, daughter, brother, and nephew during a U.S. airstrike on his home in Mosul, Iraq, in 2015. We'll be back with them in a moment.

[MUSIC BREAK]

AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, Democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I'm Amy Goodman with Juan González, as we continue to spend the hour looking at a damning new report that reveals how U.S.-led airstrikes against Islamic State militants in Iraq have killed far more civilians than officials have acknowledged. The Pentagon claims 466 civilians have been killed in 89 airstrikes since 2014.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: But an on-the-ground investigation by The New York Times Magazinetitled The Uncounted found the actual civilian death toll is much higher than the U.S. is admitting. In fact, the report reveals that as many as one in five coalition airstrikes on ISIS targets in Iraq resulted in civilian deaths.

The reporters write, "To understand how radically different our assessment is from the coalition's own, consider this: According to the coalition's available data, 89 of its more than 14,000 airstrikes in Iraq have resulted in civilian deaths, or about one of every 157 strikes. The rate we found on the ground—one out of every five—is 31 times as high." For more, we're joined by the two reporters who co-authored this investigation titled The Uncounted.

Azmat Khan is an investigative journalist and a Future of War fellow at New America and Arizona State University. And Anand Gopal is an assistant research professor at Arizona State University and the author of No Good Men Among the Living. Also with us is Basim Razzo in Erbil, Iraq, via Democracy Now! video stream.

Basim Razzo, I'd like to begin with you. In our headlines today, we talked about—and I understand that he is in the dark right now because the electricity has gone out in his city. But his line is still working with us. I would like to ask you—in our headlines, we reported that the United States is going to end up spending trillions of dollars just in interest over the next decades on all of the military, the interventions in Iraq and Syria. I am wondering, when you hear this enormous amount of funds and yet you find that you are one of the few people, civilians, who suffered from a U.S. airstrike that has actually been offered any kind of payment, your reaction when you hear these enormous sums spent, and yet so little that the United States is setting aside for the victims of its mistaken attacks.

AMY GOODMAN: I think his light has just come on.

BASIM RAZZO: Yes, it just came on. Well, really, it is very upsetting because, actually, the first time I heard that the civilian life of an Iraqi killed was $2,500, which was really, really upsetting, I felt it was degrading. And I talked to one person—I said, "How would you feel, like if you are in an airplane accident in the United States, and you lost somebody you love, and the airline will give you $2,500 for it?" He said, "I would be outraged." I said, "How do you think I feel? My wife, daughter, brother, and nephew were killed by an airstrike, and they were innocent civilians, and now they offered me $15,000 for two people." I was outraged really by this amount. Very, very upset.

AMY GOODMAN: Anand Gopal, can you talk about the effect of this on Iraq? The far more—far greater number of civilians killed than the U.S. is willing to admit, as it says it is routing out ISIS, the so-called Islamic State?

ANAND GOPAL: Yeah. The U.S. has effectively defeated ISIS, but at the cost of destroying whole cities and leaving thousands, if not tens of thousands, of families completely broken. Mosul is an example in which at least half of the city of Mosul is nearly in rubble. And these are not accidents in the sense that we would normally think about it.

These are policy decisions. For instance, in Mosul, the city of Mosul was surrounded and civilians and ISIS fighters were not allowed to leave the city in an exit corridor, which was one of the conditions which induced ISIS to take civilians hostage and led to extraordinary numbers of civilian casualties.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And Azmat, you had mentioned that your study area was East Mosul, but really some of the worst damage was in West Mosul, and you think that the casualty figures may actually be much higher than even your study shows?

AZMAT KHAN: Yes. Not just because we didn't include West Mosul, but also because these airstrikes that we were serving—the 103 in that sample—occurred before a rule change that stated last December, under President Obama, that authorized more ground commanders, to be able to call in and approve airstrikes. And many believe that this was one of the reasons why we saw a spike in civilian casualties from these airstrikes.

But I also want to point out what we found to be a lack of ability to investigate properly by the coalition. What we found repeatedly during the course of our investigation is not just that they were not necessarily locating evidence or verifying evidence for allegations, but also that they sometimes lacked the information to even determine sometimes whether an airstrike was a coalition airstrike or their own.

In the 103 coordinates, and even more than that, that we passed on, we were told sometimes, "Listen, this particular airstrike was not us. It is unlikely to be us. The nearest airstrike we carried out was as far as 600 meters away." But then we would find coalition videos uploaded by the coalition itself showing those airstrikes in the places that we had pinpointed, or in that area.

And when we followed up about it, we were told "We can only tell you what the log shows." And we had this happen on several occasions. And what it shows you is that their logs are incomplete or what they're searching is incomplete. And the number one reason that they cite when they deny a civilian casualty allegation is that they have no record of a coalition airstrike taking place in a geographic area. And that casts doubt on their credibility investigations so far.

AMY GOODMAN: Have they taken down all these YouTube videos?

AZMAT KHAN: They took down videos from YouTube. These videos still—and to distinguish, they still exist on other military websites, but YouTube was the one place where people could comment.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: So in other words, to follow up on this, what you're suggesting is that the actual record keeping, the logs of where the attacks occurred, are sometimes incorrect, which could either mean, one, just sloppy log keeping by the soldiers involved, or deliberate reports of the wrong coordinates for an attack?

AZMAT KHAN: It really is troubling that these records were not kept in a way that was conducive to accurately investigating or investigating properly, because what we were told when I visited Qatar and I went to the Combined Air Operations Center, is that "We have 100 percent authority over where we drop our weapons. We know exactly where they are landing." And that turned out in some cases not to be true.

AMY GOODMAN: The U.S. military says it is the most precise war and targeting that they have ever engaged in. We only have a minute, and we want to give that minute to the focus of your story, though you tell many. As we talk about what has happened to Basim Razzo, your final comment, your message to the world?

BASIM RAZZO: Well, I want to add just one more thing in this one minute. Just like Azmat said, because there was no exit corridor for ISIS, they were forced to stay in the city and fight. And the excessive use of force, because some—probably one member of ISIS would be on top of a roof of a building—just remember, Azmat, the guy we met from [inaudible] family. There were two numbers of ISIS on his roof, and the whole house was bombed. This was excessive use of force.

My friends in Mosul told me of really precision bombing on small cars and only the car will be hit. But when you want to kill one person, you demolish a whole house? This is really terrible. I'm sorry for all the loss that has happened. I really would like the Americans to restudy their strategy of using this precision [inaudible].

AMY GOODMAN: We are going to have to leave it there. I thank you so much for being with us, Basim Razzo, from Erbil, Iraq, and Azmat Khan, and Anand Gopal. We will link to their story, The Uncounted. I'm Amy Goodman, with Juan González. Thanks so much for joining us.

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