User:Pbfreespace3/Article Refutation 2

This is a point-by-point refutation of a CNN article attacking an anti-ISIS force.

CNN	Pbfreespace

Who supports who?

One might expect that the long-suffering inhabitants of Raqqa, who have been under ISIS' heavy black yoke since 2013, would welcome the approach of their liberators. But according to a tweet put out in English by the activist group Raqqa Is Being Slaughtered Silently, "the strategy of taking Raqqa by SDF... push a lot of people to join ISIS to Defense for their city." In other words, rather than preparing to welcome their would-be liberators, some Raqqa inhabitants are choosing to throw their lot behind ISIS.

What is your race/ethnicity?

The problem lies in who those would-be liberators are. Backed by the United States, the Syrian Democratic Forces are a coalition of Kurdish, Assyrian, Christian, Arab tribal and other forces. But they are dominated by the Kurdish YPG, the Popular Defense Units. In other words, it's a Kurdish armed force with a multi-ethnic façade, and the Arabs of Raqqa could well be worried about their intentions in a post-ISIS Syria.

The ethnic overview that CNN gives is fairly accurate. The Kurds do compromise the large majority of the SDF. But what happens to Raqqa after the war is over is mainly a political dispute. It's unlikely the Syrian Army will ever get it back, nor the rebels, who are far away from this city. What is most likely is that the city is liberated by the SDF and then slowly returns to control by local Arab brigades.

• Queue some story about an ethnic insult that isn't really relevant here

The Distrust

Arabs have long suspected the Kurds of trying to carve a separate state from Syria and Iraq. Turkey, struggling with a restive Kurdish minority, has the same preoccupation. Those are some of the macro concerns. The micro -- or perhaps more correctly, the local -- concerns of the people of Raqqa include the worry that a well-armed, U.S.-supported, predominantly Kurdish force will expel or subjugate them and take their land, and as they say in Arabic, "land is honor."

The Kurds would like a separate state, yes. In terms of international recognition, that's pretty far off in the future, and the America has shaped the Syrian Kurds' destiny since the battle of Kobanî. What's more likely is the North Syria Federation, which is a half-Arab, half-Kurd autonomous region that is neutral between the Syrian government and the rebels. This wouldn't be seperate from 'Syria' per se, so crying wolf about a Kurdish minority rule really isn't appropriate here. When the Kurds declare a Kurdistan in Syria, that's when you should start raising these questions, CNN.

The Conclusion

I was in northeast Syria last December, and saw that Arab towns and villages "liberated" by the SDF and the YPG remained abandoned. The Kurdish forces told the original inhabitants they would not be allowed to return for the time being because of booby traps and other safety concerns. But what was apparent was that the Kurds suspected the Arab villagers of being ISIS sympathizers, while the Arabs I spoke with, just miles from their town, denied any ISIS sympathies. They also weren't at all confident they would ever return home.

So some villages were abandoned. I could go into detail about how many Arab villagers did support ISIS because they were racists against the Kurds, but instead I'll just say that these people will end up back in a place that they like, and they'll be just fine. Forcible displacement on a large scale isn't happening, and even if it were, it sounds like, from the anecdote of the racist Arab available in the full article, that the Arabs really would be happier living away from Kurdish areas. Overall, I dislike this article because it is criticizing an anti-ISIS action. CNN's messages about the Kurds could shift the way our congressmen think about them, and thus prolong the life of ISIS and damage to Syrian society for many more years.