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Nearly a hundred years ago, the Kurdish rebel leader Sheikh Mahmoud Barzanji carried around in his pocket a copy of Woodrow Wilson’s 14 Points, so inspired was he by American self-determination. And yet it would be the Americans who would help deny the Kurds the same right at nearly every turn. Two years after Wilson delivered that speech, the Allies agreed to an independent Kurdistan in the 1920 Treaty of Sevres. But by 1923, in the Treaty of Lausanne that recognized Kemal Attaturk’s Turkey, the international community abandoned the Kurds and the referendum promised in the Treaty of Sevres was never realized. Thus began the Kurdish struggle for independence.
After several thwarted attempts to break away from Iraq, the Kurds finally got their first indirect aid from the U.S. in the early 1970s, more thanks to the Shah of Iran than anything else. In 1972, Iraq aligned with the Soviet Union and the Shah pushed the U.S. to arm the Kurds by selling them Soviet weapons seized in Egypt. By 1974, the Kurds were in open rebellion led by Mullah Mustafa Barzani, of the same tribe Barzanji was from. But by 1975, Iran and Iraq made peace under the Algiers Accords. Iranian support for the Kurdish uprising abruptly came to a halt and the rebellion collapsed.
Barzani fled to Iran and then America, where he died in 1979, the same year of the Iranian Revolution, where yet again U.S. allegiances shifted. And, yet, again, the Kurds were the unwitting victim. Towards the end of the First Gulf War, the Kurds saw a window for independence. Encouraged by the Americans, they rose up against Hussein for the third time. Hussein sent in the army and rolled over the Kurds, slaughtering thousands of villagers as they passed through. More than 1.5 million Kurds fled through the mountains to Turkey. American troops and arms never materialized, though they eventually sent in air support, which helped the Kurds push Hussein back to Kirkuk. In order to protect the Kurds, a no-fly zone was formed that lasted nearly a decade, until the Second Gulf War.
The United States has done a lot of cruel **** in our history, but our sellout of the Kurdish people, the only people in the whole Middle East that we can actually trust...and who seems to love us unconditionally no matter what, has to be the cruelest of them all.
If we were gonna do anything in Iraq that passed as a positive contribution in lieu of the mess we created, we should've given them a homeland, armed them, and promised to stand their nation up by taking their case to the U.N. for independence. And we should've told Turkey and Iran to go to hell if they didn't like it.
At least we would've had something to show for all the time and money we wasted by invading Iraq.
Just saw on the news. We're sending more "Advisors" to Iraq. Nothing like a good election here to get another war started somewhere. Iraq is as good a place as any I suppose.
Just saw on the news. We're sending more "Advisors" to Iraq. Nothing like a good election here to get another war started somewhere. Iraq is as good a place as any I suppose.
I don't know. I thought Obama had talked a bunch of American companies into investing in Africa just last week. First he scolds them about moving out of the country to avoid taxes and then he wants them to invest in other countries instead of here. Just boggles my mind.
The United States has done a lot of cruel **** in our history, but our sellout of the Kurdish people, the only people in the whole Middle East that we can actually trust...and who seems to love us unconditionally no matter what, has to be the cruelest of them all.
If we were gonna do anything in Iraq that passed as a positive contribution in lieu of the mess we created, we should've given them a homeland, armed them, and promised to stand their nation up by taking their case to the U.N. for independence. And we should've told Turkey and Iran to go to hell if they didn't like it.
At least we would've had something to show for all the time and money we wasted by invading Iraq.
I think the cruelest was when we encouraged them to rebel against Saddam after 1st Gulf War, and then we allowed Saddam to massacre them.
Just saw on the news. We're sending more "Advisors" to Iraq. Nothing like a good election here to get another war started somewhere. Iraq is as good a place as any I suppose.
I don't know. I thought Obama had talked a bunch of American companies into investing in Africa just last week. First he scolds them about moving out of the country to avoid taxes and then he wants them to invest in other countries instead of here. Just boggles my mind.
investing in overseas projects and moving out of the country are two completely different things.
I don't know. I thought Obama had talked a bunch of American companies into investing in Africa just last week. First he scolds them about moving out of the country to avoid taxes and then he wants them to invest in other countries instead of here. Just boggles my mind.
I'm pretty sure the right wingers said we were going to war in Africa; that's what I was referencing anyway.
I think the cruelest was when we encouraged them to rebel against Saddam after 1st Gulf War, and then we allowed Saddam to massacre them.
Kurds: no oil, no equivalent to AIPAC in our Congress, and not white enough....and Muslims to boot.
In other words...they're ripe to be screwed.
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