Foreign Digest: Syria, Hong Kong, Turkey

Syrian attack on anti-Islamic State forces

            The attack last week by Bashar Assad’s Syrian regime forces on the Syrian Democratic Forces, the non-Islamist rebel group backed by the United States, while the SDF were engaged in fighting the Islamic State Islamist terrorists, proves Assad and his Iranian and Russian allies are not anti-Islamic State.  The Syrian attack also disproves Syrian and Russian propaganda that the U.S. is pro-Islamic State, against which the U.S.-backed forces in Syria are making steady progress, as are the Iraqis, who are also supported by the Americans.  The tyrant Assad is desperately clinging to power.  He and the Russians have focused on U.S.-backed rebels, instead of against the Islamic State or al-Qaeda.  The U.S. responded to the Syrian attack by shooting down a Syrian fighter jet.  The Russian Federation, in response, put deconfliction at risk by cutting off communication with the U.S. and warning the Americans not to operate west of the Euphrates River. 

Hong Kong pro-democracy protests

            There were more pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong last week, this time at the swearing-in of the special administrative region’s Peking-appointed leader.  There were arrests of some protestors, as the Chinese Communists have not been keeping their promise they made when they took over the territory from the United Kingdom in 1997 to maintain Hong Kong’s self-rule and freedom. 

Update: Charges and arrests of Turkish presidential guard 

           The District of Columbia Capitol Police late last week charged more than a dozen members of the Islamist dictator of Turkey’s presidential guard with crimes, including felonies, for their beating of peaceful protestors on American soil in front of the Turkish Embassy to the United States.  Several Turkish presidential guardsmen were arrested.  Germany has declined an invitation to the Turkish dictator for a summit of economic powers because of the incident.