Thought I'd put the ol' pipe in my mouth and settle into professorial mode for a bit to blab on about the " Kurdish Nation "...

Hope to stimulate some debate/discussion beyond reppearso ramblings and a TomFart poem on the subject..

so...

Thinking of Kurds makes two types of North Americans feel guilty or embarrassed.

Liberals and leftists who oppose the US military presence in Iraq do not like to be reminded that the Kurdistan Region of Iraq is a success story, or that its citizens refer to liberation, not the occupation, of Iraq, and do not want a hasty exit strategy from a new US president to destroy their accomplishments.The region is democratic, peaceful, becoming prosperous and pro-American, and its government is willing to recognize Israel.

the 'realist' rightists, the Kissingers, Scowcrofts and Bakers, and others among Washington's basement Machiavellians, do not like to be reminded that they betrated the Kurds to the genocidal Baathists. In 1975, they did so to cement a deal between the Shah of Iran and Saddam Hussein. In the 1980s, US policy makers aided Saddam against the Ayatollah Khoumaini, and Arabs against Kurds - even denying that the Baathists gassed Kurdish civilians. In 1991, President George H.W. Bush called on Kurds and Shia Arabs to revolt against Saddam, but left them to the butcher's mercy when oil-rich Kuwait was freed.

Liberals and leftists would like to forget about the Kurds; they embarrass their simple good-and-evil portrait of the Iraq wars. By contrast, the real rightists activly want to betray them again, as the Baker-Hamilton Report of 2007 made clear.

the Kurdistan Region is a truly remarkable embarrassment for certain theories and bigots. It is a Muslim-majority democracy in which women have rights, and families drink Christian-made wine at spring picnics outside Sulaimania. In the capital, Erbil, the elected Kurdistan National Assembly zealously protects the co-sovereign rights it won in the negotiation of Iraq's constitution. That was endorsed by four out of five Iraq's voters in October 2005, and with the near unanimous consent of Kurds.

the region's elected president, Masoud Barzani, watches warily for signs of another US betrayal, which destroyed his father Mulla Mustafa Barzani. In Baghdad, his coalition partner and long-time rival, Jalal Talabani serves as president of Iraq, trying to coax the Arab parties to implement the constitution.

The Kurdistan Region has more autonomy within Iraq than Quebec has within Canada.and more than any member state in the European Union. It has full control over its security, full authority over its natural resources and has a proportional share of Iraq's oil revenues from currently exploited fields. It shares power in one of the formally weakest federal governments in the world; the important exclusive competencies of the federal government can be numbered on less than one set of fingers. Kurdistan's diplomatic missions are entitled to represent the region's interests on all important domestic policy matters.

the Kurds of Iraq have therefore, through their own efforts, won something better than formal independence and membership in the United Nations. They enjoy the substance of independence without giving their Turkish or Iranian neighbours any reasonable excuse to intervene to block their sovereign rights.

The Kurds are living in their homeland, what they lack is a genuinely self-governing region, or an independent state of their own...most notably because Turkey and Iran are deathly afraid that the assertion to statehood would mean that, while eliminating the troublesome Kurdish 'minorities' in their backyards, it would mean carving off or losing valuable and ' sacred' land holdings to a new nation next door [ land which may hold potential resource riches they would hate to see lost ]

Those who recommend the immediate withdrawl from Iraq and a handover to the UN need to be asked what that will do for the Kurds, and asked what the 22 Arab majority member-states of the UN have ever done to protect human, let alone national, rights of the Kurds [ fellow Muslims for the most part ]

The Kurdish government has drafted its own constitution, but has not ratified it as the government wants to consult more fully, including minorities, to make sure this document is - state-of-the-art with provisions to protect non-Kurdish nationalities within its region and other human rights.

Admittedly Kurdistan has had a run of good luck since 1998, but it will need help to avoid being crushed by the interests of Turkey, Iran and the Sunni Arabs. It will need those leftist liberals and the rightists within the western democracies to defend what the Kurds have accomplished under the US umbrella - but not under US directions....

The Kurds are a great and nobel people.
I understand the rebels in the mountains fighting for 'their land'. I also know that
perhaps the most important 'resource riches' will be the waters of the Tigris having some 22 dams built in Turkey.

I've read of their great King Saladin who was once enemy and friend of King Richard I. Old
Lion Heart lost most of the Holy Lands to Saladin although bargained for Christian pilgrimages (not Thanksgiving Pilgrams)
on Jerusalem at the tready of Ramla.

This Knight Saladin had control over most of the present muslim middle east and continues to influence 'modern muslims with a jahardon' as his eagle is seen on the flags of several Arab/Muslim states. He inspires the infata with the Palestinians... probably thinking if this Kurd could repulse the Crusaders then they might repule the Zionists. (I know I find them 'repulsive')

The rest of the World would do well to remember some of Saladin's better traits.

Wikipedia has a good page about him here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saladin

It may also be noted that not all Kurds are Muslim...there're Kurdish Jews and some Kurdish Christians who speak Aramaic (remember Mel Gibson's 'Passion'?) Most of the Kurds speak
Persian dialects.

The U.S. 'typically got on the wrong side' of 'them' with our old buddy the Late Shaw.

There Kan certainly be more to Kome from the Kurds. Especially if the Kruats Kum to the
Kaiser's Klan for another Kartätschenprinz
Kosy with the Kurds...

(sorryk)

Does anyone truly believe that most Americans care about any of the people in Iraq or its neighboring countries? We insulate ourselves from the world by promoting unrelenting ignorance and wanton self interest.

I have heard too many people both supporting the war and those opposed to it talk down Muslims and their religion as though all the good guys were Christian or Jewish.