One of those, for your information- keep it under your hat, kind of postsI've never been one to promote the Kurd victim meme so liberally spread at this time- Nothing is ever that simplistic- Memes are simply mind viruses created to manipulate. Kurd:Victim is a meme.All information I've read regarding the 'leaders' of the messy mix of Kurdish people, shows their leadership to be both betrayers and betrayed. Always aligning themselves with power for their own, often corrupted, personal gain. But, never completely innocent! Never entirely the victim. Kurdish elite and fighters have a history of brutality, ethnic cleansing and aligning with power for gain. As it was in the past, so it is in the present. What is apparent is the leadership leaves the masses to bear the brunt of their corruption.... Much like the masses everywhere (not unique to kurds) Sigh......Such a familiar theme.It's interesting also how much the kurds have fought among themselves. And they still are today!20 page pdf : The Kurds as Parties to and Victims of Conflict
In the inter-Kurdish civil war that broke out in 1994, each of the two parties sided with neighbouring countries in order to defeat its adversary. In 1996 the KDP even called for military support from the Iraqi government to expel the PUK from Arbil.
In 1998 the KDP and PUK ended their conflict and started to cohabit in a ‘‘cold peace’’ relationship, but did not manage either to reunite their two administrations or to repatriate the thousands of citizens displaced during the fighting. In autumn 2002 there were still heavily armed checkpoints in the no- man’s-land between the two areas of influence. Although on a much smaller scale, another confrontation emerged, this time between the PUK and a radical Islamist group called Ansar al-Islam that had established its base in the mountainous area near Halabja on the border with Iran. It consisted of radical Islamists who had split off from other Islamist groups in Kurdistan, and of Kurdish and Arab Afghanistan ‘‘veterans’
So many of the same groups still around today- Some readers here may recall me mentioning Ansar al Islam as a Kurdish group of radical Islamists.. Some readers may recall me mentioning it seemed much more probable that the Kurds killed (gassed) in Halabja were killed by other kurdish factions, rather then Saddam Hussein- Much in the same way that it was the rebels that used sarin gas in Syria.However, for rallying the troops and enforcing a simplistic meme, blaming Saddam for 'gassing the kurds' was likely more expedientFrom 1992: An 18 page pdf- Read it entirely-
- Foreign Influences on the Kurdish Insurgency in Iraq
"Although it is not possible to predict the future, it is clear that the Kurds in Iraq have a rare opportunity to add a chapter to the new world order being constructed as the twentieth century draws to a close"
(26) Former Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin admitted that his country gave the Kurds "money, arms, and instructors."
Medvedev signs order lifting ban off chartered flights between Russia and Turkey