Turkey’s scapegoating of US special envoy Brett McGurk over the military partnership between the United States and the Syrian Kurds grew crazier today, with one pro-government newspaper labeling him a murderer.
“US envoy murders 46,000 civilians in Iraq, Syria,” blared the front page of the conservative Yeni Safak. “The coalition forces, led by … McGurk … who has recently come to light with his anti-Turkish statements, slaughtered 46,000 civilians in operations in Iraq’s Homs and Syria’s Raqqa provinces.” The destruction of Mosul, the flattening of Raqqa, famine, lack of medicine … These and other calamities befalling Syria and Iraq are all apparently the doings of McGurk, the US envoy for the global coalition against the Islamic State (IS).