Thursday, July 13, 2006

STANDING AND FIGHTING

PKK Fighters, Qandîl mountains, 2004.
From ConflictPics, by Jason P. Lowe.



"You might as well stand and fight because if you run, you will only die tired."
~ Vern Jocque, USMC.


Nice photo, isn't it? There are more at the ConflictPics link.

This photo reminds me of one of the posts at the DozaMe blog. Take a look over there at the "My People's Hope" post and listen to the music on the video there. It's beautiful, and I think I must have listened to it about 500 times while writing last night's post.

The song is also famous for being sung by the immortal Şehîd Hozan Serhad, and there is something on his life in an article from Kurdish American Youth.

Almost a month ago, on 19 June, I alerted Rastî readers to Ralph Peters' article, "Blood Borders," carried in the Armed Forces Journal. Now it looks like the Turkish media has discovered it.

There's a commentary on "Blood Borders" from Radikal, carried on TurkishPress.com in which we are told that the US's desire to establish a Kurdish state is nothing new. That's news to me, especially since there is rarely a mention of Kurds in American media. If American media were your main source of news, you wouldn't even know that Kurds existed. I remember getting overjoyed watching video clips of Kurds dancing during the first "Iraqi" elections just because it was Kurds finally being shown on major American cable networks.

When one of the al-Askariya bombers was captured, American media didn't say that Kurdish pêşmerge captured him, they said "Iraqi forces" captured him. What Iraqi forces? It was pêşmerge!

We all know why the American media does this kind of thing. It's because the administration is so desperate to apply enough super glue to Humpty Dumpty, that they don't want anyone to realize they can't put Humpty Dumpty back together again. The administration will camel trade with any Turk, Arab, or Persian on the planet, but it sure as hell has never planned on an independent Kurdistan.

Over at TDN, Gunduz Aktan is crying about how Peters' article will "punish" Turkey:


The map suggested by Peters indicates that Turkey would be the only country to be punished despite having good relations with the United States though it has no artificial borders. According to the map, in an area of 150,000-200,000 square kilometers in the eastern and southeastern parts of Turkey, a free Kurdistan would be founded.


Man, they always say stuff like that. "We're being punished even though we're a good friend of the US!" In articles announcing ECHR decisions against Turkey, and orders to pay fines to victims, the Turkish media always says, "Turkey is being punished even though we're a good friend of the EU!"

No artificial borders? Go ahead, pull my other leg while you're at it, Gunduz.

An "analyst" has an opinon on Peters' article at Khaleej Times and this guy is a bit more subtle than Turkish media. This guy agrees there should be a free referendum, at least in Iraq, but he never addresses what to do if almost 100% of Kurds under Iraqi-occupation were to vote for independence. We do know that the results of such a referendum would be very close to 100%, too. I guess his idea of a democratic referendum is that the expression of the people's will is enough, but that powerbrokers should never act on that will . . . kind of like the State Department's attitude.

He ends his opinion with the threat that changing the borders would result in much bloodshed, but really I don't see that this is a matter of relevance from a Kurdish frame of reference. Too much Kurdish blood has already been shed by the occupiers, and continues to be shed. What is there to lose by continuing to stand and fight for Kurdistan?

British Ahwazi's are opposed to Peters' suggestion of redrawing the borders, revealing how very effective Persian brainwashing has been among them:


"The task for Ahwazis and other minority groups in Iran is to make minority rights a part of the struggle for democracy and human rights in Iran. This is what the Congress of Nationalities for a Federal Iran is trying to achieve. It is the responsibility of the international community to support such grass-roots initiatives, rather than imposing solutions based on academic exercises."


Blah, blah, blah, blah. Fine, stick with the Persians, pal. They're your best friends.

Meanwhile, back in Teheran, Ahmadinejad is squirreled away in the closet talking to the Mahdi about how to rescue Nasrallah, so he hasn't had the chance to weigh forth as a font of wisdom on the whole business of redrawing the borders. With any luck at all, however, Nasrallah will be vaporized by an Israeli missile (Everybody say "Inshallah!"), even as one of Ahmadinejad's flying monkeys was blown out of the sky today by HPG's gerîlas.


Am I gloating over HPG's recent successes? Roger that, because I am proud of them. Now go on over to DozaMe and listen to Şehîd Hozan Serhad's Halkimin Umudu to celebrate.

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