CPTnet

29 January 2012

IRAQ: Boom, boom, boom bangs the war drum

By Pat Thompson

We have learned that some of our reporting on the conflict here in Kurdistan could be used to justify military action against Iran.

Our  team in recent months has included Canadian, European, Kurdish, and U.S. members. From our CPT family and from world news, we are aware that no one beats the drum of war louder and with such zeal as the U.S. media and their allies, including Israel and certain members of the European Union.

We do not wish to be a part of this.

The war-mongers claim, “They are terrorists. They may have nuclear weapons. We will not buy their oil. We will not talk to them. We will not sell to them, until they stop building nuclear weapons”.  Sanctions have been imposed. Banks have been restricted. Iran is under an imposed lock down.

At least this is what we are told. Governments and their media tell us it is “right” to impose economic sanctions, and it is “right” to use military action against a “rogue” state which refuses to bow to their demands.

As if any society has a monopoly on morality and the right to police the rest of the world.

But who is it that suffers? The Iranian Government with its control of the nation’s wealth?  No. It is, and always has been, the ethnically and religiously diverse people of Iran. The West knows this and calls it acceptable, hoping that this suffering will lead the people to pressure their government to change course. Yet we know that the Iranian government, like western governments, does not always answer to its people.

This is affirmed by our brother and teammate Ramyar, an Iranian Kurd. Ramyar has been in Iraq for six years during which he has been a friend, partner, and now an intern with CPT. He has told us stories of his home, his land, his people, and their customs, food, and music. He has also shared about the political system, and his opposition to a heavily conservative form of Islam imposed on the once more liberal country. He shared the history of how the Russian, British, and U.S. empires have undermined the prosperity of Iran over the past 150 years.

Most movingly, he has talked about his family, his mother and father, his sisters and brothers, some of whom we have been blessed to meet in person despite the invisible walls of state borders that separate him from them. When we decide to impose economic or financial or military sanctions on Iran, we decide to make Ramyar’s family suffer.

The CPT Iraqi Kurdistan team, including Ramyar as a cherished member, opposes ALL violence. We oppose the violence committed against the Kurdish people by the Turkish, Iranian, and Arabic nations, as well as the political and economic violence committed by the western nations. We also oppose the violence of war mongering, of beating the war drum, of claiming the “right” to police the world.

CPT Iraqi Kurdistan opposes all military action against Iran.