At a first glance, the YPG/YPJ seems like the most humane faction in the madness that is dominating the Middle East. They fight against the genocidal fanaticism of ISIS and from what VICE and their platform showed us, they seem to be a multi-ethnic force that is passionately trying to bring forth a revolution in the chaos.
However, this is not the case at all and leftists should stop romanticizing the Kurdish forces. There have been cases of torture, political killings, destruction of political freedom, recruitment of children in the police and armies, show trials, and the killing of protesters. Yes war is cruel and to expect humanity in what is the antithesis of humanity is outright naive, but to ignore these atrocities is outright hypocritical.
On top of that, there have even been allegations of ethnic cleansing of Sunni Arabs, Turkmen, and Assyrians by Kurdish forces from many Arab and Turkish sources. The validity of these sources are not airtight and there is almost no moral conscious to prevent people from spreading propaganda, but it would not be the first time this kind of activity has been practiced by self-proclaimed leftists.
http://www.hrw.org/news/2014/06/18/s...h-run-enclaves
http://www.hrw.org/node/126065
http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/syria-kurdi...-abyad-1506198
Plus this reads like a typical liberal democratic constitution.
http://civiroglu.net/the-constitutio...ojava-cantons/
I still support the YPG and PKK and hope that they can establish a homeland for themselves, but it pains me to no end when these allegations keep coming up over and over again.