Yesterday, Pres. Rejep Tayyip Erdogan was here in DC. His presence and the apparently lengthy meeting he had with Pres. Trump both attracted many criticisms and a non-trivial street protest in the square across from the White House. Yes, there are numerous serious things to criticize Erdogan for, including some of those mentioned in the coverage by the corporate media.

However, a lot of the MSM’s criticism of Erdogan has been wildly off the mark. For example, it is true that, in conjunction with Trump (and also his own Astana-process colleagues), Erdogan did indeed push the Syrian-Kurdish militias and many of their dependents out of the strip of Syria along its northeastern border. But where was any expression of outrage from the U.S. corporate media or the Democratic Party nabobs of the numerous large, multifaceted, and extremely destructive violations of Syrian sovereignty that Turkey has been engaged in continuously since 2011?

Ranked against all the other quite illegal violations of Syria’s sovereignty Turkey has committed over the past nearly-nine years, this latest one in the Northeast ranks fairly high, but not necessarily at the top.

For example, the support Turkey has given for many years, and continues to give, to the Al-Qaeda-affiliated militias controlling Syria’s Idlib province has almost certainly caused more death, destruction, and disruption of vital services services to Syria’s long-suffering people than anything it has done to the Kurds in the Northeast. How much objective news do we get from the corporate media about the situation in Idlib? (Here was my recent take on it.)

Since 2011, Erdogan has acted as a brutal, massively lethal and lawbreaking bully inside Syria. BUT he is now engaged in the most hopeful diplomatic effort yet that aims at ending Syria’s tragic, tragic civil war on an inclusive and sustainable basis.

Since 2011, the U.S. government has also acted as a brutal, massively lethal and lawbreaking bully inside Syria. But the U.S. government is still not supporting the UN-led peacemaking effort for the country and in many ways seems to be continuing to work to undermine that effort and to strangle any hopes of Syrian reconstruction.

So really, which of these two governments deserves more criticism for its actions inside Syria? Just asking…