IRAQ: Attacking the Kurds
September 11th, 2008
in:
CPTnet
11 September 2008
IRAQ: Attacking the Kurds
by Mary Grace
The U.S. administration is giving Turkey military intelligence to pinpoint bombing raids on Kurdish villages in northern Iraq. Iran is also bombing these villages from the east. Displaced villagers, including children, point uniformly to the north to show where the aerial raids have been appearing since December 2007. They then turn to the east, from where the land-vehicular launched shelling began on 16 March of this year. They report that the weapons are different in design and trajectory.
Everyone our CPT delegation met—villagers, reporters and NGO representatives, including the International Committee for the Red Cross in Suleimaniya—told us that Turkey and Iran are both attacking what they claim are PKK (rebel) hideouts in the Kurdish north of Iraq, forcing the mass displacement of village families into the mountains farther south.
Most Kurds are bewildered by U.S. support for Turkey's attacks. Iraq is a sovereign nation, which the U.S. is occupying. Occupation, under the laws of war, requires any occupier to protect the citizens in their occupied land.
The Turkish motive is obvious. Because of Iraqi Kurdish attempts to integrate oil-rich Kirkuk into Iraq's Kurdish Regional Government (KRG), Turkey is deeply concerned that a stronger Kurdish independence movement would follow, leading to a Kurdish homeland. In terms of population, oil/gas reserves, and landmass, Kurdish independence would most deeply affect Turkey, then, in descending order, Iraq, Iran, and Syria. If Kurds finally get the homeland colonial powers promised them after World War I, these nation-states would lose gas production, holdings and monies.
Complicating the situation is the U.S. government beating another set of drums for war, this time against Iran. If the U.S. attacks Iran, the U.S. administration will almost certainly cite Iranian attacks against Iraqi Kurds to garner the support of compassionate U.S. citizens for such an attack.
When our delegation sat with the United Nations High Commission on Refugees representative, Mr. Riza, he said: "This is all about oil, and nothing else." As a U.S. citizen, I asked myself: Do we allow our government to wage war for access to a finite resource? Or do we determine, as a people, that we will no longer allow our country to attack and kill the innocent over natural resources? By our personal merchandising and political choices, we acquiesce to, or resist, the status quo.
[The author, of Wolftown, Virginia, was a member of the Christian Peacemaker Teams (CPT) delegation to northern Iraq, 31July-14 August 2008. Others were Patricia Blocksome (Manhattan, Kansas), Nathan Hoover (Lancaster, Pennsylvania), Donald Kahle (Eugene, Oregon), Hayley Kemp (Plymouth, England), and Kathleen O'Malley (Albuquerque, New Mexico).]
11 September 2008
IRAQ: Attacking the Kurds
by Mary Grace
The U.S. administration is giving Turkey military intelligence to pinpoint bombing raids on Kurdish villages in northern Iraq. Iran is also bombing these villages from the east. Displaced villagers, including children, point uniformly to the north to show where the aerial raids have been appearing since December 2007. They then turn to the east, from where the land-vehicular launched shelling began on 16 March of this year. They report that the weapons are different in design and trajectory.
Everyone our CPT delegation met—villagers, reporters and NGO representatives, including the International Committee for the Red Cross in Suleimaniya—told us that Turkey and Iran are both attacking what they claim are PKK (rebel) hideouts in the Kurdish north of Iraq, forcing the mass displacement of village families into the mountains farther south.
Most Kurds are bewildered by U.S. support for Turkey's attacks. Iraq is a sovereign nation, which the U.S. is occupying. Occupation, under the laws of war, requires any occupier to protect the citizens in their occupied land.
The Turkish motive is obvious. Because of Iraqi Kurdish attempts to integrate oil-rich Kirkuk into Iraq's Kurdish Regional Government (KRG), Turkey is deeply concerned that a stronger Kurdish independence movement would follow, leading to a Kurdish homeland. In terms of population, oil/gas reserves, and landmass, Kurdish independence would most deeply affect Turkey, then, in descending order, Iraq, Iran, and Syria. If Kurds finally get the homeland colonial powers promised them after World War I, these nation-states would lose gas production, holdings and monies.
Complicating the situation is the U.S. government beating another set of drums for war, this time against Iran. If the U.S. attacks Iran, the U.S. administration will almost certainly cite Iranian attacks against Iraqi Kurds to garner the support of compassionate U.S. citizens for such an attack.
When our delegation sat with the United Nations High Commission on Refugees representative, Mr. Riza, he said: "This is all about oil, and nothing else." As a U.S. citizen, I asked myself: Do we allow our government to wage war for access to a finite resource? Or do we determine, as a people, that we will no longer allow our country to attack and kill the innocent over natural resources? By our personal merchandising and political choices, we acquiesce to, or resist, the status quo.
[The author, of Wolftown, Virginia, was a member of the Christian Peacemaker Teams (CPT) delegation to northern Iraq, 31July-14 August 2008. Others were Patricia Blocksome (Manhattan, Kansas), Nathan Hoover (Lancaster, Pennsylvania), Donald Kahle (Eugene, Oregon), Hayley Kemp (Plymouth, England), and Kathleen O'Malley (Albuquerque, New Mexico).]