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The Bush
Administration has come under increasing fire due to
its inability to find weapons of mass destruction in
Iraq, one of the main reasons it gave in launching
its attack in the first place. While Jay Leno & Co.
continue to crack jokes, and AP writers such as
Matthew Fordahl have also made light of the subject
in papers such as The Herald in Rock Hill, South
Carolina ("For Today's Giggle, Try Asking Google To
Find weapons Of Mass Destruction," 7/16/03), there
is one people who surely will not be joining in the
laughter. And they were not the only ones for whom
the subject is deadly serious--literally.
"The Kurds have no friends but the Mountain" is a
piece of aging Kurdish wisdom. And while the mass
gassings and other slaughter of this people have too
often been treated as "yesterday's news," all the
current hype about whether or not Adolph -- er
Saddam -- Hussein had/has weapons of mass
destruction brings their tragic story back onto
center stage...or at least should.
Thirty million stateless, used, and abused Kurds are
the native, non-Arab, non-Turkic, non-Semitic people
who were promised independence in Mesopotamia -- the
ancient heartland of Kurdistan -- after the Ottoman
Turkish Empire collapsed in the wake of World War I.
They were the Hurrians of the Bible and the Medes of
Persian history. Saladin, the mighty medieval Muslim
warrior, was a Kurd.
Unfortunately, they soon saw these earlier promises
sacrificed on the altar of British petroleum
politics and Arab nationalism. Arab Iraq was born
instead.
It's imperial navy having recently switched from
coal to oil power, Great Britain did not want to
anger the strategically important "Arab" world,
possessing its own oil wealth, by agreeing to
support a Kurdish nationalism which was viewed by
Arabs with the same disdain as they display towards
the nationalist movement of Israel's Jews (one half
of whom descended from refugees from the
"Arab"/Muslim world) or any other of the subjugated
peoples -- Berbers, Black African Sudanese, etc. --
who dared to assert their own identities and
demanded political rights.
Despite their own internal differences, Kurds from
all over the region had largely put their hopes and
dreams into the creation of that one independent
Kurdish state, not unlike situations involving
Greeks, Armenians, and Jews in their own respective
earlier diasporas. The frustration arising from the
abortion of that earlier Mesopotamian dream (a cause
supported by such personalities as President Woodrow
Wilson, Mark Sykes, and others) lead to decades of
revolts and problems in Syria, Turkey, and Iran as
well.
In a post-imperial age when other dormant nations
were reawakening, the Kurds were repeatedly told
that they were unworthy of such desires... by
so-called "friends" and foes alike. That brings us
back to current times.
While repeated partitions have occurred and are
still being demanded of the geographic area of
"Palestine" (the first occurring when the Arab
nation of Jordan was created in 1922 as a result of
Colonial Secretary Churchill's separation of all the
land east of the Jordan River from the 1920
borders), none have been allowed for a much larger
Mesopotamia. Only Arabs have been allowed to have
their nationalist desires sanctioned in a land in
which millions of Kurds and others have lived long
before the Arab conquests in the 7th century C.E.
and the continuing forced Arabization ever since. In
their frustration, the Kurds have subsequently been
caught up in numerous regional and global rivalries,
being used and abused by all...Syrian and Iraqi
Arabs, Turks, Iranians, Soviets, Brits, Russians,
Americans, and so forth.
Post-World War I Iraq was largely divided between
two major factions: Arab nationalists, who saw Iraq
simply as one part of the overall greater Arab
patrimony, and Iraqi nationalists. The latter --
some Kurds, Assyrians, Turkmens, a few Arabs, etc.
(with few exceptions, Iraq's 200,000 Jews basically
watched carefully from the sidelines) -- deluded
themselves into believing that Arabs would allow a
true equality to emerge within the country. Yet
earlier Iraqi history should have taught another
lesson: the Arab Caliphate of the 'Umayyads based in
Damascus had been replaced in the 8th century during
the Abbasid Revolution. The latter established its
imperial base farther east in Baghdad and was
supported largely by non-Arab converts to Islam, the
Mawali, who demanded an equality that Arabs back
then had also refused to give.
Short of another major Abbasid-like revolution,
Iraq's Arabs (Shi'a or Sunni)--having once again
regained their position of dominance -- were not
likely to give it up. Sure enough, subsequent
massacres of non-Arab populations and the continued
forced Arabization of their cultures and lands
helped squash most of the modern "Iraqi" nationalist
delusions. While, in theory, this would be a nice,
American-styled democratic solution, centuries of
reality regarding actual Arab practices and
attitudes tell quite a different story. Added to
this, think about Sunni Arabs now continuously
blowing apart Shi'a Arabs (along with everyone else)
as Iraq now attempts to enter into some semblance of
a democratic age.
In the 1970s, after promoting Kurdish military
support for the Shah of Iran against Iraq, America
pulled the rug out from under Mullah Mustafa Barzani
when the Shah made his temporary peace. Tens of
thousands of Kurds were subsequently slaughtered as
a result. A repeat performance came in 1991, when
President George Bush, Sr. called for the Kurds and
others to revolt in order to topple Saddam from
within. When they heeded his call, he then stood by
and watched as Kurdish men, women, and children were
massacred by the thousands. Just a bit earlier,
thousands more had been gassed to death -- 5,000 in
Halabja alone...all of this with the might of the
U.S. military within a stone's throw of the action.
The pathetic excuse meekly offered later on was that
America had been "tricked" by the Iraqis in
agreements regarding terms of the ceasefire. This
will forever be a stain on America's honor, despite
after-the-fact "no fly" zones subsequently set up by
the Allies.
Besides the thousands of Kurdish civilians who were
immediately killed, tens of thousands of others have
subsequently died due to the lingering effects of
the poison. Remember this the next time someone
offers up a chuckle about Saddam's weapons of mass
destruction.
Adding insult to injury, at a time when much of the
world is now demanding that the sole, miniscule
state of the Jews accept that a terrorist 22nd Arab
state -- and second Arab one in Palestine--be
created in its own backyard, these same alleged
voices of ethical enlightenment still insist that
there will be no roadmap for Kurdistan. Indeed,
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and the rest of
the Foggy Folks repeatedly quash even discussion of
such ideas.
The good news is that earlier talk of a federalist
solution, whereby Kurds would at least gain some
local autonomy within a united Iraq, seems--for now
at least--to be back on track; however, there is
still a large possibility of this changing in the
long term due to the majority Shia's other demands
and plans for dominance.
Kurds have won some increased influence lately due
to America's and the Shi'a Arabs need to have them
as a counterweight to suicide-bombing Sunni Arabs.
But what will happen when the Shi'a consolidate
their power and/or the American public gets fed up
with the returning body bags and costs in treasure?
Shi'a spokesmen have already made clear what their
long term intentions are...so the Kurds still have
cause to be concerned.
Nevertheless, despite all of the problems, while
other butchers do indeed exist elsewhere, and
America cannot simply assume the roles of the
world's policeman, judge, and jury, there were still
very good reasons to bring about the end of Saddam's
regime...whether we're ever able to locate his WMD
or not. Again, just ask those Kurdish parents who
bore witness to mass graves holding hundreds of
their children being unearthed...a scene right out
of the Holocaust.
Yet, while we're on the subject, just how do we
define weapons of mass destruction?
Thanks to Israel's surgical strike removing the
immediate nuclear threat some two decades ago (for
which it was universally condemned -- James Baker
and George Bush, Sr. leading the pack in his
pre-presidential days), Saddam's nuclear option
suffered a severe setback. But ample evidence
suggests that he didn't give up on this endeavor,
and Iranians and probably others as well were also
gassed by Saddam, so no one doubts his possession
and willingness to use this latter type of WMD.
It's not too difficult to hide poison gas -- or even
its delivery systems -- in a country as large as
Iraq, especially since weapons inspectors had been
out of the country for a long time. And we now know
that Syria has been up to its eyeballs in
collaboration with Iraq regarding all kinds of
things. Syria has its own huge stockpiles of such
weaponry, so it would theoretically be easy to hide
Iraqi WMD this way.
Additionally, Saddam had plenty of time to learn the
lesson of the 1967 Arab-Israeli war that it wasn't a
good idea to leave your weapons exposed. No one ever
claimed that the Iraqis are stupid....even if some
of Saddam's actions antagonizing America (and giving
it little choice but to act) in recent decades might
suggest otherwise.
So...what's all the ongoing fuss about WMD really
all about?
Could it be just domestic politics being played out
by opponents of Tony Blair and Dubya and/or another
example of the hypocrisy and double standards
practiced by the rest of the world which put Israel
under a high power lens in judging its struggle to
survive while ignoring the literally millions of
non-Arab people -- such as the Kurds -- who have
been massacred, seen their cultures and languages
"outlawed," and such for simply daring to assert
their own identities and resisting forced
Arabization? And also daring to dream of
independence?
Is it that the murder of hundreds of thousands of
Kurds over the decades simply doesn't matter? And if
it really did, then would it matter if we could or
could not locate the hidden WMD we already know that
Saddam had and used against this people?
The current real concern and debate should therefore
not be about locating Saddam's WMD, but providing
the long term justice the victims of his WMD
deserve.
What will happen once America gets fed up with the
Arab mess in post-Saddam Iraq, packs up and leaves
the country, and the tax payers, Turks, and others
get tired of the "no fly" zones protecting the
Kurds? Will we still insist that Kurds remain as
perpetual victims to Arab subjugation and murder?
Did we force a post-Tito Yugoslavia to remain united
while the different ethnic groups massacred each
other? Think about that a bit...It seems that, on
the contrary, America was instrumental in
dismembering and virtually partitioning that
country. Perhaps there's a lesson there for
Mesopotamia as well...
Unless we work out an arrangement for our own long
term presence (i.e. bases in Iraqi Kurdistan seem to
be the best choice), the tanks and planes Iraq's
Arabs mostly kept leashed in confronting America
will very likely once again wreak vengeance against
America's strangely loyal Kurdish friends. Again, a
mounting toll of American dead and maimed, along
with other costs, will bring ever increasing
pressure for an American retreat...right or wrong.
One of the biggest booboos we made was ending the
war too quickly, allowing Saddam's military to cast
off their uniforms only to soon bleed us and the
Shi'a in an ongoing guerilla war of attrition.
Locating an enemy scattered among a civilian
population is a helluva bit harder and more complex
than pinpointing him on the battlefield. We were
played for dummies, and quite likely due to pressure
from the State Department to end the war prematurely
so as not to anger its Arab buddies elsewhere even
more than they were already.
Yet, despite all of this, America insists that--at
the most--a modified federal version of a failed
"Iraqi" nationalism will be all that Kurds might
hope for in a post-Saddam Iraq...as if Saddam alone
was the problem and created those subjugating Arab
attitudes towards non-Arabs all by himself. In the
long run, it's more than doubtful that a post-Saddam
Iraq will view "political equality" any differently
than when Saddam was forcibly removing Kurds from
their ancient oil-rich lands around Mosul and Kirkuk
and replacing those that he didn't kill with Arabs.
The American occupation, despite much good that it
has already brought to the land, will
increasingly--as we are now seeing--be resented. And
those who aligned themselves with America--the Kurds
in particular--will once again be sought out for
revenge. Yet, without a prolonged, guided, and
powerful American occupation, there is no chance
whatsoever for an inclusive Iraqi nationalism to
emerge. With America's presence, this still only has
a slight chance for success. There are simply too
many age-old, powerful forces working against it.
While America has been playing a delicate balancing
act trying to soothe Turkey's fears regarding its
own large Kurdish population and not angering the
Arab oil sheikhs and autocrats with the prospect of
the loss of what they see as "purely Arab land" to
the Kurds, it must now begin to reassess this
policy. Provisions can be made to make sure that an
independent Iraqi Kurdistan behaves as a good
neighbor. It might actually relieve Turkey of some
of its own Kurdish headaches by accepting immigrant
Kurds who feel themselves oppressed by the Turks.
Indeed, that's one of the things that the Arabs have
feared as they called the birth of Kurdistan another
Israel.
Certainly if Arabs, most of whom still deny Israel's
right to exist, are deemed deserving of their 22nd
state, with most of the world's hypocrites clamoring
for it as well, some thirty million stateless Kurds
living in varying degrees of danger and subjugation
are, at long last, deserving of one.
This should be the issue being debated and under
scrutiny right now...not Saddam's weapons of mass
destruction.
And America must not leave the Kurds at the mercy of
Arab butchers as it has done too often in the past.
Ed: Views are those of individual authors and not
necessarily those of American Daily.
www.americandaily.com
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