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Michael Rubin, the beltway’s Kurdish
“Expert” is now a freedom fighter
10.7.2009
By Vahal A. Abdulrahman
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July
10, 2009
ERBIL-Hewlêr,
Kurdistan region 'Iraq', — With
an apparent spiteful pen, Michael Rubin wrote an
article last week in the Daily Star under the title,
“Kurdish
Leaders Are Drunk with Power.” Rubin
writes that what he sees as inevitable fraud in the
upcoming Kurdish elections that will lead to
Iran-style protests following the release of the
results. We have not even had the elections and here
is Michael Rubin envisioning chaos in the only part
of Iraq that has consistently been chaos-free since
the liberation of Iraq in 2003.
Perhaps it is finally time to expose Michael Rubin
for what he really is not and that is, an “expert”
on Kurdish affairs, something by which he is
erroneously known. Michael Rubin does not speak,
read nor write Kurdish, yet he consistently makes
references to Kurdish publications as if he monitors
them. Rubin has not been to Iraqi Kurdistan since
long before the liberation, when he was here, he
served as a lecturer at two of Kurdistan’s public
universities; strangely enough, both the staff and
students with whom Rubin worked have told me that he
spent far more time complaining about his living
conditions and imaginary issues of privacy (he
thought his email was being hacked) than he did
teaching or learning the complex landscape that is
Kurdish politics.
Over the past few years, Rubin has published dozens
of articles in which he criticizes the Kurdistan
Regional Government (KRG) for, among other claims,
support for the Turkey's Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK),
corruption, and dictatorial governance. He has gone
as far as equating Kurdish leaders to regional
dictators and in one instance, he even disgraces the
Anfal victims by saying that the actions of the KRG
has made the Anfal genocide less significant. It is
incomprehensible to any person with respect for
human life how 182,000 innocent lives could ever be
made less significant in anyone's memory. Clearly
insensitive to Kurds' history of hardships under the
Ba'athist regime, it becomes difficult to accept any
of Rubin's works regarding the Kurds as objective or
even free from hatred.
As he usually does as a public integrity
commissioner, Rubin says that the KRG is corrupt and
throws his usual, “millions of dollars,” while
failing to provide any evidence to back his claims.
He goes on to imply that there is an absense of free
media in Kurdistan as oppose to the rest of Iraq.
Rubin makes this baseless claim while the heads of
independent media organizations in Kurdistan (such
as Awene) themselves have openly stated in
interviews that media in Kurdistan have better
working conditions and enjoy greater press freedom
than the rest of Iraq as a result of the region's
longer tradition of democracy and civil society.
In his writing, Michael Rubin goes on to claim that
oppositional leader, Nawshirwan Mustafa,
has joined forces with the former secretary general
of the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) led by
Massoud Barzani to form the Change List.
Sadly,www.ekurd.net
it
appears that the Daily Star has dismissed it's
fact-checking team when it comes to Kurdistan.
Nawshirwan Mustafa who campaigns mostly in
Sulaimaniyah and the surrounding areas, does not
have any KDP partners with the former post of
Secretary General; this is probably because the KDP
has no such title in its bylaws, but I guess
anything goes when it comes to Michael Rubin.
Rubin says that the people of Kurdistan refer to
Barzani and Talabani and their immediate relatives
as “little Saddams,” and goes on to offer a
suggestion that “little Rafsanjanis” is more
accurate. It is of no surprise that his apparent
neglect of journalistic practices have caused him to
make yet another claim that he blatantly fails to
provide sources for. As somebody who frequently
visits this region and speaks with individuals that
identify with all different political creeds, I have
never heard such references from the people.
However, it is not accidental that Rubin is making
such claims; he wants to equate the Kurdish leaders
with Iranian leaders so that somehow people can
begin thinking of this region as just another Iran.
There was a time when people like Rubin helped set
the discourse, but that time is long gone and he
knows it better than all of us.
Iraqi Kurdistan is an American friendly region where
Arabs, Kurds, Turkomen and others live side by side
in a safe and prosperous area of Iraq. All of the
Western observers, including friends of Rubin’s
confirm that claim, but for unfathomable reasons,www.ekurd.net
Michael Rubin
does not want to take off his
blinders even when his bosses in Turkey have begun
to realize that a partnership with Iraqi Kurdistan
makes more sense than a rivalry.
Rubin concludes his awkward opinion piece by taking
off his hat as a writer and putting on one where he
is a freedom fighter and urges Iraqi Kurds to stand
up for liberty as their Iranian brethren have last
month. That call would have more weight if Iraqi
Kurds did not know who Rubin was.
So, such is the sad reality of cheerleaders of
chaos; perhaps a dispatch from Ankara telling him to
stop harassing the Kurds and start providing some
useful insight would do the job.
Vahal A. Abdulrahman reports from Iraqi
Kurdistan; you can reach him at vahal.ali (at)gmail.com
Copyright, respective author or news agency,
kurdishherald.com
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