... an interesting parallel

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/oct/08/why-world-ignoring-revolutionary-kurds-syria-isis

David Graeber, one of the most interesting and relevant social scientists of our day, on similarities between the revolutionary elements of the Kurdish movement, the IS and the Spanish Civil War .... the Kurdish movement is enacting a new strategy:

The PKK has declared that it no longer even seeks to create a Kurdish state. Instead, inspired in part by the vision of social ecologist and anarchist Murray Bookchin, it has adopted the vision of “libertarian municipalism”, calling for Kurds to create free, self-governing communities, based on principles of direct democracy, that would then come together across national borders – that it is hoped would over time become increasingly meaningless. In this way, they proposed, the Kurdish struggle could become a model for a wordwide movement towards genuine democracy, co-operative economy, and the gradual dissolution of the bureaucratic nation-state.

[ahinton]

http://www.theguardian.com/commentis...rds-syria-isis

David Graeber, one of the most interesting and relevant social scientists of our day, on similarities between the revolutionary elements of the Kurdish movement, the IS and the Spanish Civil War .... the Kurdish movement is enacting a new strategy:

That's cetainly interesting, but the problem that looks set to beset it for the foreseeable future is as Mr Graeber (or his headline writer) states, namely that fact that "a democratic experiment is being stamped into the ground by Isis".

It seems clear to me (and to some others) that air strikes are likely to achieve little other than the likely exacerbation of the IS problem and "boots on the ground" cannot realistically be expected to accomplish much more in the move permanently to "degrade and destroy" IS, not least because it is so difficult to ascertain the location of its fighters.

It is helpful that BBC and others are now more commonly referring to IS as "the so-called Islamic State", because not only do the widespread condemnations of its actions by Muslims the world over, including senior Imams, identify it as non-"Islamic", it also has neither specific territory allocated to it nor a government with its own armed forces so is not a "State" per se. One problem associated with this is that, when people speak of the risk that "civilians" will inevitably be vulnerable to the effects of air strikes and the activities of "boots on the ground", they often tend to overlook the fact that the IS targets being sought are also technically "civilians" as distinct from a state's contracted armed forces personnel; OK, some of the most uncivil "civilians" on the planet but "civilians" nonetheless.