Turkey invades Iraq

The Kurds always seem to come out on the short end of things. They might be as bad as anybody else in the Middle East, but they seem worthy of sympathy because they don't have their own country or control. If there has been one residual good thing from the Iraq invasion, it is that the Iraqis haven't beat up on the Kurds. Indeed, hanging Sadaam based on what he did to the Shi'ites deprived the world of a hearing what he did to the Kurds.

In the 1970s, Kissinger double-crossed the Kurds when he told them the US would sport them against the Shah of Iran, who took action against the Kurds.

When Bush and Rumsfeld talked about "Saddam gassing his own people" they were talking about the Kurds. What that spin ignored was...

1. There is no committment to being Iraqi deep in the hearts of the Shiites, Sunnis, and Kurds who live there. As birdscribe alluded to, the idea of being a nation in the Middle East was something imposed by the British imperialists.

2. George Bush I said the other way to deal with Saddam was that the Iraqi people could do it. The Kurds took that statement to mean that any action against Saddam would be supported by the US. When it happened and Saddam responded brutally, Bush I pretty much washed his hands and said that wasn't what he meant.

 

The British certainly have a unsuccessful history creating nations (i.e. Uganda).

 

Good point, that phrase (which we heard, what, a billion times) reflects either misinformation or some ignorance. Absolutely nobody in Iraq would ever consider the Kurds to be Saddam's "own people". That would only be the case if Saddam had gassed Sunnis, which, of course, he never did.

 

Fixed.

 

Gas doesn't have a thing to do with what happens in the Middle East, unless the hoods who control it here in the US want it to be.

 

what are you trying to say?

 

Of three pages, I've read about five coherent posts.

 

That's a pretty good ratio for us!

 

What's your beef with it, TBF?

 

Iraq is full of seperate, radical groups that think the best way to carry on day-to-day activities is to antagonize your closest neighbors with terrorist maneuvers.
Yes, the country of Iraq is a clusterfuck of people (a point made clear by Bubbler and a few others) who think the world owes them something, yet are either unwilling or unable to bring much to the table except the constant playing of the oil card.
I am not as big of a historian on the fine points of why Iraq is the way it is, but the fact remains that it is what it is.
Groups that live in Iraq and want to run around setting bombs or carrying rocket launchers on their shoulders need to recognize that this is the 21st century and that activity can't be tolerated by sanely-governed, forward-thinking nations.
The Kurds in Irag are a fringe group who've evidently been behaving this same way for over two decades.
They need to wise up or be eliminated.

 

Hed --

That's some dumb shit, right there.

The Kurds want a Kurdish nation. I'm sure the news coverage in Turkey paints the Kurds as terrorists.

They weren't terrorists when they helped the Americans the first time we invaded Iraq. Then we left and Saddam gassed them for it.

And they aren't terrorists just because Turkey doesn't want to give up part of its southern territory -- which would include oil fields and the headwaters to the Tigris and Euphrates.

 

Again, I am learning as I go with a lot of this stuff.
When I was in Turkey in April, the people were telling me that the country's boundaries were still being determined.
Government, I was told, was in the process of laying claim to specific lands that they felt entitled to.
Other countries, including Greece, were also on the watch.
A bunch of islands are said to be in question, claimed by both Greece and Turkey.
I know way too little about the ins and outs of Iraq and its neighborly squabbles.
To me, there are "good" Kurds and "bad" Kurds.
I don't think they are all on the same page with their pursuits.
Some are more peaceful, but still want certain conditions to be created in their favor which aren't existent now.
Am I wrong on this?