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War on the Kurds
25.12.2007
By Shea Howell
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December
25, 2007
The invasion of Iraq by Turkey sharpens the
importance of the immediate U.S. withdrawal from
Iraq. It highlights the impossible situation the
U.S. has created by turning to force as a solution
to political problems.
Sunday, Dec. 16, before dawn, 50 Turkish warplanes
flew over Kurdistan region 'northern Iraq' and
unleashed three hours of bombs on 10 villages. This
was the largest attack on Iraq since the U.S.
invasion and the second assault from Turkey in the
last month. The first attack was on December 1 when
Turkish artillery pummeled Kurdish territory. By mid
week, 500 Turkish troops had moved into a
mountainous area following up on the bombings.
According to the Turkish government this attack was
justified in its pursuit of the Turkey's Kurdish PKK
'terrorists' of the Kurdistan Workers Party known as
the PKK. Over the last year there have been
increased incursions into Turkey by PKK rebels. In
November, Turkey’s parliament voted to allow
military operations into Iraq and authorized the
deployment of 100,000 troops near the border.
Using both the logic and methods of the Bush
administration in fighting terrorism, Turkey is now
justifying a military campaign against the Kurds.
The recently elected Prime Minister of Turkey Recep
Tayyip Erdogan said, “We as the government are
determined to use all political, geopolitical and
military vehicles against the separatist terror
organization in the most effective way.”
The oil rich lands to the north are about to become
a much more complicated problem. And the Kurds, long
subject to discrimination, are about to be betrayed
again. This time by the U.S.
Everyone knows the U.S. endorsed these raids against
the Kurds. Massoud Barzani,www.ekurd.net
the President of
autonomous Kurdistan region in the north, condemned
the assaults and said, “These attacks hinder the
political efforts exerted to find a peaceful
solution based on mutual respect. He added bitterly,
“the Americans are responsible because the Iraqi sky
is under their full control.”
The U.S. endorsement of these assaults betrays the
one group of people in Iraq who hold out the best
promise for creating a stable, peaceful state. They
have been our strongest allies. Now they are being
sacrificed to more of Bush’s ineptness.
The Kurds are an ethnic and linguistic minority that
have lived for at least two thousand years in the
mountainous area that borders Turkey, Iran, Iraq and
Syria. Since 1920 the international community has
promised them a homeland. They are the largest
ethnic group in the world without a state, numbering
about 35 million people, inhabiting a region equal
to Germany and Britain combined.
Historically the Kurds have been exploited by nation
states. They were the targets of chemical and
biological warfare in Saddam Hussein’s campaign of
ethnic cleansing.
Kurdish resistance to these assaults has been
persistent and in 1991 Iraq was forced to withdraw
its administration from Kurdistan, allowing Kurds
for the first time to govern themselves with free
elections. In spite of internal and external
pressures, the new Kurdish government established
basic political freedoms,www.ekurd.net
provided public services,
established NGO’s, and supported three universities.
In mid 2002 anticipating the Bush invasion they set
up transition preparation committees in hopes of
establishing independence. Frustrated by the
occupation, the Kurds worked to participate in the
national government, aiming for an autonomous region
of their own. Their army, the Peshmerga, has been
key to the development an independent Iraqi force.
Numbering 75,000 strong, these men are playing a
major role in the development of the Iraqi Defense
forces and they have been the most dominant group in
assisting U.S. soldiers in Baghdad.
But the Bush doctrine of war is spreading. We need
to stop the whirlwind now.
michigancitizen com
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