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More short-sighted horse-trading, and dangerously uninformed meddling in intra-Islamic squabbles, by the U.S. government. From UPI:
U.S. confirms commitment to PKK fight
WASHINGTON, Oct. 19 (UPI) — Washington has increased its intelligence sharing with Turkey to help with its efforts to take on Kurdish militants, the U.S. defense secretary said.
Turkish lawmakers last week approved a mandate that allows the military to cross the border with Iraq to take on militants with the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK.
U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates told members of the American Turkish Council in Washington that the United States was a strong strategic ally with Ankara when it comes to Kurdish militants.
Why? Why are we standing firm in the refusal to allow the Kurds to have their own homeland? Kurds have their own language, clothing, and culture, distinct from other tribes in Iraq, Iran, Turkey, and Syria. More importantly, they are oppressed and punished as a group strictly for their Kurdishness. They can be imprisoned merely for speaking the Kurdish language. They have been murdered en masse, most notably in Iraq by Saddam Hussein.
Why is it “necessary for world peace” that the “Palestinians” have their own homeland, carved out of Israel’s tiny territory, when the “Palestinians” have never existed as a people distinct from the Jordanians or the Egyptians, whereas the Kurds cannot have their own homeland? A thousand times, Why?
“In response to the rise in PKK terrorist attacks against Turkish military forces and civilians over the past year, the U.S. has increased its efforts to crack down on PKK criminal enterprises, enhanced its intelligence support, and reached out to our European allies to encourage them to freeze PKK assets in Europe,” he was quoted by the Pentagon as saying.
The European Union, Iraq, the United States and several others list the PKK as a terrorist organization. German, Italian and Belgian authorities rounded up scores of suspected PKK militants during the spring because of recruitment efforts at alleged training camps.
Washington froze the assets of several alleged PKK leaders for their role in drug trafficking.
I never said that the Kurds were in any way more moderate, or less corrupt, than other Muslims. That is no requirement for an independent homeland, given Afghanistan’s rampant corruption.
Back in 2006, the difference in driving east from the ethnically divided city of Kirkuk was palpable. Within a few miles the roadblocks and barbed wire simply ceased to exist. Before we left Kirkuk our team nearly got into a firefight with some private guards outside the home of a prominent Iraqi Shia, he’d been targetted so many times that he had his own private army camped out around his house. Kirkuk was a power keg of ethnic and religious tension.
The Kirkuk Police were jumpy and obstructive too, but a few miles into the hills of Kurdistan – with the lights of Kirkuk still in the rear view mirror – and it was like entering another world. Relative greenery, friendly locals, better roads. There was no border as such, but the internecine fighting back in Kirkuk just ended somewhere out there in the hills. Spooky it was.
We took Baghdadi Arabs there as apart of our team to Sulaymaniyah, they were amazed at the relaxed attitude of the Kurds there. No guns, barricades, a thriving, fast-growing city, women without headress and in western fashions. It made them feel bad about driving home a couple of days later.
Poor guys – reading that actually made me a bit depressed.
The thing about the Kurds is that they will have their own country. It may not be soon – in fact it might be hundreds of years, but historically it’s very tough to quell a problem as strong and complex as the Kurdish claim to nationhood.
Actually, if you want to see where this century’s wars will be grab a volume of the Encyclopedia of Stateless Nations – it’s a reference book on stateless ethinicities, but also practically a de facto book of pending wars.
A couple of others to watch out that won’t end soon are Southern Thailand, West Papua etc
They already do have their own homeland and the comment about us having to support them
is with due respect way off base. I worked with the PUK during the early days in Iraq and they were
well organized, decent guys. I remember seeing wheat fields, functioning government, road construction
(in no way organized by the US) ongoing and no real major issues aside from the land distribution from where
Saddam murdered them and gave it to Arabs.The best way forward imo in Iraq is to acknowledge battlefield truth: There are 3 Iraqs, the Kurdish North, the Sunni Central and the Shia South. Divide the government along that way and leave us with bases in each and it will work.
FF, LOL, I remember you in the other part. Didn’t realize we crossed the same territory in the north.
I hope to go back as a guest some day.
I would love to go back to Kurdish Iraq, you know get to explore it properly, at least there’s the odd hill about, not like the south.
I’m off on Boxing Day anyway mate, the next chapter of the flipflop work-security-around-the-world gig is on, got it confirmed today. I’m waiting on the details to come through then I’m off down the old outdoors shop tomorrow to get kitted out etc. I left my last lot of gear with my boys in Kabul in January, but I’ll defo need shorts and sunscreen for this new job. 8)
@rickshaw92 wrote:
I expect to be in Somaliland at the end of Feb. if you are on that A. O. let me know and Ill smuggle us a bottle of booze to drink.
I’ll be passing by Somaliland matey, but I won’t be on dry land :wink:
How long and why are you heading out there, anything special planned?
@flipflop wrote:
@rickshaw92 wrote:
I expect to be in Somaliland at the end of Feb. if you are on that A. O. let me know and Ill smuggle us a bottle of booze to drink.
I’ll be passing by Somaliland matey, but I won’t be on dry land :wink:
How long and why are you heading out there, anything special planned?
Only a short 2 month trip guv. U.K. immigration laws and London beer prices do not allow for 6 month vacations. :x I have ben to Egypt twice but have not been to Sudan, Ethiopia, or Somaliland so thought it would be fun to do something new. Sudan has had an ongoing conflict for as long as I can remember and there was a referendum planed on succesion from the north by the south for mid Jan that got postopned just after I booked my non changable plane ticket, cunts. Rock cut churches in Ethiopia and caveman paintings in Somaliland should make for a good trip. Besides, I just coughed up a monkey on a DSLR so I wanna go take some bitchin pics.
Politics, politics politics, I don’t mind it but can’t stand black flag, all they do is argue, and they to far left for me.
I like this site it helped me, and gave me plenty of ideas, I am trying to start a charity but one where the giver is one hundred percent sure that all that he gives be it a blanket or money goes to those in need, but they will be no goats. I got kicked off black flag cause I called the owner of the site a dhimmi. Not to worry it won’t happen here. :)What do you mean mach. Yes I am sure you’re on black flag rickshaw. Wasn’t Saladin a Kurd?
I Can’t wait for south Sudan to become a nation. Have some Sudanese friends and they are all excited, about voting. There is only two places you can vote in Australia. Sydney and Melbourne. Am sure Bashir will begin the killing again. What is Clooney doing there? bloody celebrities they give me the irrates.Here on the south coast the number of charity shops, including Oxfam, a town has denotes how many old aged pensioners there are in the local population. It’s the cheap clothes and stuff you see. Either side of Brighton & Hove you have Eastbourne and Worthing, each is known as “God’s waiting room” by the locals. But the winner has to be Bexhill-on-Sea, you can’t spit and not hit an auld dear coming out of Save the Children
Interesting that the Peshmerga are gaining legitimacy and have an academy sponsored by the US military. They were actually always advanced and had their own academy, but now one thats endorsed and supported. Very interesting and they are good people. Very good at rural combat, need to work on urban ops.
Yeah FlipFlop, spent the first few days in Sulay before moving on to Erbil Which water slides mate? Travelled around up near Halabja, Chamchamel and north into the mountains close to the Iran border. Will post an article soon with more detail once I have got a couple on the West Bank and Gaza done and dusted.
On the main road road from Kirkuk, come down the last hill, at the T junction you hang a right towards the city centre, on the hill there were big curly water slides, like you see in adventure parks, covered tubes. A bizarre spectacle after transiting Baggers, Tikrit and Kirkuk at the height of the insurgency, seeing kiddies water slides.
I’d love to go back there
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