Sunday, July 27, 2008

A clear signal from Kurdistan

July 27, 2008


A clear signal from Kurdistan


The steady and strong effort of the Kurds of northern Iraq to break away from Iraq and set up an independent Kurdistan has entered a new phase. Following the Iraqi parliament's passage of a bill concerning provincial elections — that was subsequently vetoed by President Jalal Talabani, a Kurd — the Kurdistan Alliance issued a statement denouncing the endorsement. It said the federal parliament had violated the constitution by allowing a secret voting process on the bill on regional elections.
Subsequently, the alliance has also moved to expand the territory under its control.
The committee in the Kurdistan Parliament in charge of revising the Kurdistan constitution has proposed language that would formally incorporate portions of four provinces into the Kurdistan Regional Government, according to a report in the Al Hayat newspaper. The four provinces to be dismembered are Diyala, Kirkuk, Mosul and Salahuddin, on the grounds that they have Kurdish populations. The language will be presented to the KRG parliament for consideration during its August recess. The Kurdistan constitution will be voted on in a referendum.
One of the keys to understanding the Kurdish move is that Tamim — the province centred on Kirkuk —  sits atop more than enough oil to support an independent Kurdish state. The Kurds are seeking to secure absolute control of Kirkuk along with its oil wealth that would be the central pillar of the economy of Kurdistan.
The move to expand the territory under Kurdish control is yet another affirmation that the conflict pitting Kurds against Arabs in Kirkuk is worsening, with Turkey throwing in its lot to defend what it considers as its interests vested with the Turkomen living in the area. Essentially, Ankara is worried that the Iraqi Kurdish move would eventually draw in Turkish Kurds and pose a threat to Turkey's territorial integrity.
It is continuing military attacks against the Turkish Kurdish rebel group, the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), which is based on northern Iraq and stages frequent cross-border attack against Turkish targets. The latest Turkish action came on Thursday when Turkish warplanes bombed 13 Kurdish rebel targets in northern Iraq, with the Turkish military saying was determined to press ahead with anti-PKK operations both inside Turkey and across the border in Iraq "according to military needs."
The Kurdish Alliance is following a carefully charted game plan. At no point does it refer to an independent Kurdistan and always affirms its commitment to Iraq as a single entity. It reiterated its position in a July 23 statement which said in part:
"From the beginning of the post-Liberation political development of Iraq in 2003, the KRG has placed the interests of the wider Iraq first and foremost, and has shown a continual commitment to the principles of flexibility and compromise in order to peacefully and constitutionally solve problems created by the former Ba'ath regimes' policies."
Indeed, the Kurds have suffered a lot under the Saddam Hussein regime's reign. They have always pursued their dream of independence. With the move to expand their territorial control, they are signalling that they would not be dissuaded from their quest for an independent state of their own in Iraq, notwithstanding declarations and statements.

Despair, frustration and quest for revenge

July 27, 2008


Despair, frustration and quest for revenge

by 'Inad Khairallah

There is an increase in the number of women suicide bombers in Iraq. The US military and Iraqi security forces say Al Qaeda now recruit women who have lost their loved ones in the crackdown waged by US and allied forces in the country. Given that hundreds of thousands of Iraqis have died during and after the US-led invasion of their country in March 2003, the recruiters should be finding their task easy.
In an emphatic affirmation of the alarming trend on Monday, four female suicide bombers struck, killing at least 60 and wounding over 250.
What motivates women to undertake suicide missions?
It has been found that almost all of the women suicide bombers had lost their loved ones in the ongoing insurgency and security crackdown launched by the US and allied forces. Some of them lost their entire families and had nothing to look forward to life except perhaps revenge against those whom they consider as being responsible for the disaster that befell them.
Indeed, Al Qaeda is finding the ground fertile to recruit women driven by the quest for revenge in its war against the US military, Iraqi security forces and allied groups.
US and Iraqi officers have been quoted as saying that women without education, or even those who suffer from learning disabilities, are particularly targeted by insurgent leaders.
An American military officer says: "Al Qaeda look for this type of profile, then they train them and indoctrinate them."
"They keep them locked up and tell them over and over again that if they blow themselves up, they will go to paradise," says an Iraqi officer.
Few people are referring to the reality that Iraqi women's willingness to turn themselves as martyrs is yet another manifestation of the aggressive approach adopted by the US and allied forces that has little room for human considerations. More and more women are motivated by poverty, desperation or vengeance against the US-led military and allied forces they blame for the deaths of family members.
They don't need any indoctrination. They are following the natural course of human behaviour when there is nothing left to lose and someone could be seen as directly responsible for creating that situation.
Farhana Ali, an international policy analyst at the RAND Corporation, wrote in November 2005 (www.jamestown.org):
"While conflicts and motivations vary, a woman’s decision to pursue violent action is impacted by personal experiences and outcomes. Coupled with the absence of change to her own local conflict, of which she is a part of, a woman is more apt to volunteer or be recruited for an operation to end her own suffering or that of her people.
"Suicide becomes the preferred tactic when Muslim women perceive they have no other alternative to affect change to their local environment; coupled with a heightened sense of anger, disillusionment, and despair, some women choose suicide as a way to communicate and channel their frustration. This is particularly true for those who believe there are no other social, economic, or political opportunities available to them."


The Iraq experience

We have seen vivid images of how US and allied forces storm Iraqi homes in the middle of the night and search for suspected insurgents as terrified women and children cower in a corner. Males, including teenage boys, are hauled away, detained and tortured with no justifiable reason. In most cases, they are held indefinitely with no legal recourse and no communication with their families. In some cases, they are never heard of, leading the families to believe that they are dead.
Isn't that reason enough for their families to hate the US and allied forces that they see as responsible for such a course of events?
In simple terms, had the US military been humane in its approach to the people of Iraq and treated them with dignity under a respectable code of conduct, then there would not have been a situation where US soldiers and allied forces patrolling the streets of Iraq steer clear of women wearing long dresses.