Who Won’t Be Making Jokes about WMD
By Gerald A. Honigman (07/16/05)
American Daily, OH
July 16 2005
The Bush Administration has come under increasing fire due to its
inability to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, one of the
main reasons it gave in launching its attack in the first place.
While Jay Leno & Co. continue to crack jokes, and AP writers such as
Matthew Fordahl have also made light of the subject in papers such as
The Herald in Rock Hill, South Carolina (“For Today’s Giggle, Try
Asking Google To Find weapons Of Mass Destruction,” 7/16/03), there
is one people who surely will not be joining in the laughter. And
they were not the only ones for whom the subject is deadly
serious–literally.
“The Kurds have no friends but the Mountain” is a piece of aging
Kurdish wisdom. And while the mass gassings and other slaughter of
this people have too often been treated as “yesterday’s news,” all
the current hype about whether or not Adolph — er Saddam — Hussein
had/has weapons of mass destruction brings their tragic story back
onto center stage…or at least should.
Thirty million stateless, used, and abused Kurds are the native,
non-Arab, non-Turkic, non-Semitic people who were promised
independence in Mesopotamia — the ancient heartland of Kurdistan —
after the Ottoman Turkish Empire collapsed in the wake of World War
I. They were the Hurrians of the Bible and the Medes of Persian
history. Saladin, the mighty medieval Muslim warrior, was a Kurd.
Unfortunately, they soon saw these earlier promises sacrificed on the
altar of British petroleum politics and Arab nationalism. Arab Iraq
was born instead.
It’s imperial navy having recently switched from coal to oil power,
Great Britain did not want to anger the strategically important
“Arab” world, possessing its own oil wealth, by agreeing to support a
Kurdish nationalism which was viewed by Arabs with the same disdain
as they display towards the nationalist movement of Israel’s Jews
(one half of whom descended from refugees from the “Arab”/Muslim
world) or any other of the subjugated peoples — Berbers, Black
African Sudanese, etc. — who dared to assert their own identities
and demanded political rights.
Despite their own internal differences, Kurds from all over the
region had largely put their hopes and dreams into the creation of
that one independent Kurdish state, not unlike situations involving
Greeks, Armenians, and Jews in their own respective earlier
diasporas. The frustration arising from the abortion of that earlier
Mesopotamian dream (a cause supported by such personalities as
President Woodrow Wilson, Mark Sykes, and others) lead to decades of
revolts and problems in Syria, Turkey, and Iran as well.
In a post-imperial age when other dormant nations were reawakening,
the Kurds were repeatedly told that they were unworthy of such
desires… by so-called “friends” and foes alike. That brings us back
to current times.
While repeated partitions have occurred and are still being demanded
of the geographic area of “Palestine” (the first occurring when the
Arab nation of Jordan was created in 1922 as a result of Colonial
Secretary Churchill’s separation of all the land east of the Jordan
River from the 1920 borders), none have been allowed for a much
larger Mesopotamia. Only Arabs have been allowed to have their
nationalist desires sanctioned in a land in which millions of Kurds
and others have lived long before the Arab conquests in the 7th
century C.E. and the continuing forced Arabization ever since. In
their frustration, the Kurds have subsequently been caught up in
numerous regional and global rivalries, being used and abused by
all…Syrian and Iraqi Arabs, Turks, Iranians, Soviets, Brits,
Russians, Americans, and so forth.
Post-World War I Iraq was largely divided between two major factions:
Arab nationalists, who saw Iraq simply as one part of the overall
greater Arab patrimony, and Iraqi nationalists. The latter — some
Kurds, Assyrians, Turkmens, a few Arabs, etc. (with few exceptions,
Iraq’s 200,000 Jews basically watched carefully from the sidelines)
— deluded themselves into believing that Arabs would allow a true
equality to emerge within the country. Yet earlier Iraqi history
should have taught another lesson: the Arab Caliphate of the
‘Umayyads based in Damascus had been replaced in the 8th century
during the Abbasid Revolution. The latter established its imperial
base farther east in Baghdad and was supported largely by non-Arab
converts to Islam, the Mawali, who demanded an equality that Arabs
back then had also refused to give.
Short of another major Abbasid-like revolution, Iraq’s Arabs (Shi’a
or Sunni)–having once again regained their position of dominance —
were not likely to give it up. Sure enough, subsequent massacres of
non-Arab populations and the continued forced Arabization of their
cultures and lands helped squash most of the modern “Iraqi”
nationalist delusions. While, in theory, this would be a nice,
American-styled democratic solution, centuries of reality regarding
actual Arab practices and attitudes tell quite a different story.
Added to this, think about Sunni Arabs now continuously blowing apart
Shi’a Arabs (along with everyone else) as Iraq now attempts to enter
into some semblance of a democratic age.
In the 1970s, after promoting Kurdish military support for the Shah
of Iran against Iraq, America pulled the rug out from under Mullah
Mustafa Barzani when the Shah made his temporary peace. Tens of
thousands of Kurds were subsequently slaughtered as a result. A
repeat performance came in 1991, when President George Bush, Sr.
called for the Kurds and others to revolt in order to topple Saddam
from within. When they heeded his call, he then stood by and watched
as Kurdish men, women, and children were massacred by the thousands.
Just a bit earlier, thousands more had been gassed to death — 5,000
in Halabja alone…all of this with the might of the U.S. military
within a stone’s throw of the action. The pathetic excuse meekly
offered later on was that America had been “tricked” by the Iraqis in
agreements regarding terms of the ceasefire. This will forever be a
stain on America’s honor, despite after-the-fact “no fly” zones
subsequently set up by the Allies.
Besides the thousands of Kurdish civilians who were immediately
killed, tens of thousands of others have subsequently died due to the
lingering effects of the poison. Remember this the next time someone
offers up a chuckle about Saddam’s weapons of mass destruction.
Adding insult to injury, at a time when much of the world is now
demanding that the sole, miniscule state of the Jews accept that a
terrorist 22nd Arab state — and second Arab one in Palestine–be
created in its own backyard, these same alleged voices of ethical
enlightenment still insist that there will be no roadmap for
Kurdistan. Indeed, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and the rest
of the Foggy Folks repeatedly quash even discussion of such ideas.
The good news is that earlier talk of a federalist solution, whereby
Kurds would at least gain some local autonomy within a united Iraq,
seems–for now at least–to be back on track; however, there is still
a large possibility of this changing in the long term due to the
majority Shia’s other demands and plans for dominance.
Kurds have won some increased influence lately due to America’s and
the Shi’a Arabs need to have them as a counterweight to
suicide-bombing Sunni Arabs. But what will happen when the Shi’a
consolidate their power and/or the American public gets fed up with
the returning body bags and costs in treasure? Shi’a spokesmen have
already made clear what their long term intentions are…so the Kurds
still have cause to be concerned.
Nevertheless, despite all of the problems, while other butchers do
indeed exist elsewhere, and America cannot simply assume the roles of
the world’s policeman, judge, and jury, there were still very good
reasons to bring about the end of Saddam’s regime…whether we’re
ever able to locate his WMD or not. Again, just ask those Kurdish
parents who bore witness to mass graves holding hundreds of their
children being unearthed…a scene right out of the Holocaust.
Yet, while we’re on the subject, just how do we define weapons of
mass destruction?
Thanks to Israel’s surgical strike removing the immediate nuclear
threat some two decades ago (for which it was universally condemned
— James Baker and George Bush, Sr. leading the pack in his
pre-presidential days), Saddam’s nuclear option suffered a severe
setback. But ample evidence suggests that he didn’t give up on this
endeavor, and Iranians and probably others as well were also gassed
by Saddam, so no one doubts his possession and willingness to use
this latter type of WMD.
It’s not too difficult to hide poison gas — or even its delivery
systems — in a country as large as Iraq, especially since weapons
inspectors had been out of the country for a long time. And we now
know that Syria has been up to its eyeballs in collaboration with
Iraq regarding all kinds of things. Syria has its own huge stockpiles
of such weaponry, so it would theoretically be easy to hide Iraqi WMD
this way.
Additionally, Saddam had plenty of time to learn the lesson of the
1967 Arab-Israeli war that it wasn’t a good idea to leave your
weapons exposed. No one ever claimed that the Iraqis are
stupid….even if some of Saddam’s actions antagonizing America (and
giving it little choice but to act) in recent decades might suggest
otherwise.
So…what’s all the ongoing fuss about WMD really all about?
Could it be just domestic politics being played out by opponents of
Tony Blair and Dubya and/or another example of the hypocrisy and
double standards practiced by the rest of the world which put Israel
under a high power lens in judging its struggle to survive while
ignoring the literally millions of non-Arab people — such as the
Kurds — who have been massacred, seen their cultures and languages
“outlawed,” and such for simply daring to assert their own identities
and resisting forced Arabization? And also daring to dream of
independence?
Is it that the murder of hundreds of thousands of Kurds over the
decades simply doesn’t matter? And if it really did, then would it
matter if we could or could not locate the hidden WMD we already know
that Saddam had and used against this people?
The current real concern and debate should therefore not be about
locating Saddam’s WMD, but providing the long term justice the
victims of his WMD deserve.
What will happen once America gets fed up with the Arab mess in
post-Saddam Iraq, packs up and leaves the country, and the tax
payers, Turks, and others get tired of the “no fly” zones protecting
the Kurds? Will we still insist that Kurds remain as perpetual
victims to Arab subjugation and murder? Did we force a post-Tito
Yugoslavia to remain united while the different ethnic groups
massacred each other? Think about that a bit…It seems that, on the
contrary, America was instrumental in dismembering and virtually
partitioning that country. Perhaps there’s a lesson there for
Mesopotamia as well…
Unless we work out an arrangement for our own long term presence
(i.e. bases in Iraqi Kurdistan seem to be the best choice), the tanks
and planes Iraq’s Arabs mostly kept leashed in confronting America
will very likely once again wreak vengeance against America’s
strangely loyal Kurdish friends. Again, a mounting toll of American
dead and maimed, along with other costs, will bring ever increasing
pressure for an American retreat…right or wrong.
One of the biggest booboos we made was ending the war too quickly,
allowing Saddam’s military to cast off their uniforms only to soon
bleed us and the Shi’a in an ongoing guerilla war of attrition.
Locating an enemy scattered among a civilian population is a helluva
bit harder and more complex than pinpointing him on the battlefield.
We were played for dummies, and quite likely due to pressure from the
State Department to end the war prematurely so as not to anger its
Arab buddies elsewhere even more than they were already.
Yet, despite all of this, America insists that–at the most–a
modified federal version of a failed “Iraqi” nationalism will be all
that Kurds might hope for in a post-Saddam Iraq…as if Saddam alone
was the problem and created those subjugating Arab attitudes towards
non-Arabs all by himself. In the long run, it’s more than doubtful
that a post-Saddam Iraq will view “political equality” any
differently than when Saddam was forcibly removing Kurds from their
ancient oil-rich lands around Mosul and Kirkuk and replacing those
that he didn’t kill with Arabs.
The American occupation, despite much good that it has already
brought to the land, will increasingly–as we are now seeing–be
resented. And those who aligned themselves with America–the Kurds in
particular–will once again be sought out for revenge. Yet, without a
prolonged, guided, and powerful American occupation, there is no
chance whatsoever for an inclusive Iraqi nationalism to emerge. With
America’s presence, this still only has a slight chance for success.
There are simply too many age-old, powerful forces working against
it.
While America has been playing a delicate balancing act trying to
soothe Turkey’s fears regarding its own large Kurdish population and
not angering the Arab oil sheikhs and autocrats with the prospect of
the loss of what they see as “purely Arab land” to the Kurds, it must
now begin to reassess this policy. Provisions can be made to make
sure that an independent Iraqi Kurdistan behaves as a good neighbor.
It might actually relieve Turkey of some of its own Kurdish headaches
by accepting immigrant Kurds who feel themselves oppressed by the
Turks. Indeed, that’s one of the things that the Arabs have feared as
they called the birth of Kurdistan another Israel.
Certainly if Arabs, most of whom still deny Israel’s right to exist,
are deemed deserving of their 22nd state, with most of the world’s
hypocrites clamoring for it as well, some thirty million stateless
Kurds living in varying degrees of danger and subjugation are, at
long last, deserving of one.
This should be the issue being debated and under scrutiny right
now…not Saddam’s weapons of mass destruction.
And America must not leave the Kurds at the mercy of Arab butchers as
it has done too often in the past.