So the referendum in Catalonia is unconstitutional? A vote for Kurdish sovereignty is illegal? A collective initiative can be UNILATERAL?! These complaints don't sound very democratic... Communities wanting the right to self determination is the point of governments from the people's point of view. Rulers only care about taxes and fealty, but have to sell it like their population's consensus. Brexit was xenophobic and retrograde apparently, not the desire for emmancipation.
Tag: Kurdistan
The Puppet-Masters and their pet Turkey, double-dealing.
They condemn those of us in America who rebel against their fascist Corporate leadership and presumption of ownership of every aspect of our lives, calling it "Freedom" while their Pig-Slaves break our heads with clubs and plastic bullets. And in the case of Oscar Grant, lead and copper bullets. While cheering rebellions in countries which have denied "deprived" the Poor Little Rich Boys like Halliburton, Exxon-Mobil, British Petroleum, Royal Dutch, Shell, "stolen" their claim to have Corporate Control over their ports and their oil. And they actually finance and organize the so-called "spontaneous" rebellions like in Libya and now, Syria. Never mind they're also paying Other Peoples Money And Lives to put down REAL grass roots movements in Iraq and Afghanistan and Yemen... And Turkey. Turkey is now paying back their Corporate Overlords for the U.S. and NATO PUBLICLY FUNDED Terror War against the Kurds and Albania. The Slave-Caliph Recep Tayyip Erdogan condemns Syria for responding violently to violent attacks while continuing to suppress, with the help of his Puppet Masters in London and Washington, the Kurdish People actually having a right to life. Lick them Pentagon Boots, "caliph" Erdogan. They're your masters and you are their dog. Just like the New Puppet Regime in Libya, and the somewhat more established Puppet Regimes in Tel Aviv, Kabul, and Baghdad. Be the little whipped hound for racist bastards who call you "ragheads" and "sand-niggers" and "muzzle monkeys". You might wear golden chains and a gold collar, but they're still a collar and chain. Just like the Oakland, Denver, Colorado Springs and New York Police departments violently suppressing freedom here, in the very homeland of your puppet-masters and, at their bidding.
US journalists! Visit scenic Kurdistan!
US media correspondents, reporters, tv anchors and news directors, get yourselves to scenic Kurdistan asap, visit the mountains of Sulaimania, the waterfalls of Ahmed Awa are apparently recommended. Embeds, lead the way! It may be the only way all you war propagandists will reap what you so justly deserve. I can't imagine there's a single corporate media journalist who wouldn't be hard pressed to defend the pro-war filter he or she puts on the news for US domestic consumption. Corporate tools? They're military industrial pitchmen. Advocating death and dismemberment without restraint. Let them plead ignorance. Bullshit. I'd love to see Bill Clinton make a case for all of them. Antiwar voices are split on whether to charge MSM collaborators for war crimes, for selling the Anglo world on patently illegal wars. But how else are we to be rid of them? America remains locked in a Vulcan mind meld with these impudent, immoral careerists. Perhaps apprehension by the Iranians, and a trial by revolutionary council, is the only justice they might ever meet. Dispatch them to Kurdistan: Assignment Iran! Let the Persians teach Americans the only way to deal with poisonous snakes. The media song now, to spin the recent errant three in the best light, is that Kurdistan was not an unthinkable destination for tourists such as they, and perfectly safe too. Unless you venture toward the Iran border, where US commandos have been raiding Iranian infrastructure, while the US Navy taunts the Iranian coast in full force. Alas, Kurdistan, quite happy with its undeclared sovereignty from Iraq, has proven to be a safe haven for Anglos. I remember a most heartbreaking scene from the first month of the war, recorded by an independent American photographer as he worked his way through Kurdistan. Perhaps you recall it. Do I mean the friendly fire, or accidental, I'm not sure which to put in quotes, bombing which killed coalition troops, but also took out a Kurd ally who may have turned out to rival a more favored ally? No, not that one. Our photographer was making his second entry into Iraq as I recall, and documented a personal incident thus. He was traveling with a Kurd escort, when an Iraqi combatant broke through with a grenade, determined to blow himself up next to the American. And I should clarify, I was not rooting against the photographer, but-- here's what happened. The Iraqi was being held off by a Kurd fighter, but he had pulled the pin on the grenade, and leaned against his opponent, dooming both of them if the Kurd dared to shoot him. The scene unfolded in the progression of stills the photographer snapped as he hastened away. The Iraqi was chest to chest with the Kurd, pleading to be let to get the American. I interpreted his entreaties to say: Brother let me pass, I must reach the American, I have no quarrel with you, let me die with the infidel. The Kurd seemed for a moment to consider the words of his Iraqi brother.
“Fighting for our freedom”
That's a theme that comes up from time to time. I'll point out something a couple (literally, they're married to each other) of Air Force Sergeants boast about, from when they were on TDY in Turkey, their wing was doing the Northern No-Fly Zone over Kurdistan, another ethnic group without a National Identity Recognized by the Great Powers. They make jokes about the time one of their pilots murdered a Kurdish shepherd. One of the Kurds they were allegedly "protecting". Blew him and his sheep smooth away, took away his family's support and all their property, and said he thought the sheep were Militants. Not long thereafter, the Same Sources Of Information the Trolls Keep Citing as "accurate" told that there had not been one single incident of Civilians being killed, that the "smart weapons" like the ones sold to the Israeli and Saudi armies and air forces were so precise they only took out Militants. The two Air Force Sergeants, one of them I grew up with, knew her since childhood. And she was boasting and LAUGHING about making a widow and orphans out of the mans family and destroyed their means of surviving as well. The Joke they tell about it is "The Pilot was feeling "SHEEPISH because he was having a BAAADDD DAY" The Trolls may feel free to use it as a party joke at their next Klan Rally... or Campus Republican Meeting... ...same difference, like Yogi Berra says.
Turkey’s Kurds and China’s Tibetans
The Western corporate press is non-stop reporting on China's suppression of the rebellion by its small Tibetan minority of about 6 million Tibetans, out of a nation of 1.3 billion. Many in the US support independence for a portion of Tibet, which would take away about 1/5 of Chinese territory if it were to take place. China has about 21% of the world's entire population. The bossy US has about 5%, so let's see how the support for other peoples plays out in US press coverage of the current Kurdish rebellion in Turkey? Are we paying much attention to it? Turkish police clash with Kurds What? Hadn't heard about it yet? I've seen plenty of Free Tibet signs in town here in Colorado Springs, but have yet to see even one calling for Free Kurdistan. Why might that be? Why is nobody in the US calling for an independent Kurdistan for Turkey's Kurds? Kurds make up about 1/5 to 1/4 of Turkey's total population of 70 million. These Turkish Kurds are over 1/2 of the total Kurdish population worldwide. If Americans are so worked up over the national rights of Albanians in Kosovo and the Tibetans in China, why are they so silent on the rights of the Kurds in Turkey? What's with us dumb Americans? Is it that we are that politically and geographically illiterate, Virginia? (asking my Mom and my cat) Is it that we think the Turkish government to be 'democratic'? lol... I just don't know...
Holding Iraq down for others to kick it
It's been repeated we cannot pull US forces out of Iraq before we have established an Iraq military with which the Iraqis can defend themselves. Not a police force, not a constabulary or carabinieri, but a veritable army to defend Iraq against its neighbors. Unless we're talking about Turkey. It did sound surreal the first time they made the case, didn't it? The US expends all that ordnance to destroy the Iraqi army, then we claim to need to build it up again. But Iraq has enemies besides just us, we're told, so fair enough, we'll defend them until they can do it themselves. But that doesn't apply to Turkey. Apparently, the US, and the Iraqi Puppet military role with respect to the Iraqi northern neighbor of Turkey, is to hold the region open to surgical strikes on select Iraqi malcontents. The Turkish incursions have the same elements of Israel's excursions into Lebanon. They are facilitated by the US. These extra-judicial posses, lynch mobs I suppose you could call them, are like the raids General Pershing used to conduct into Mexico in search of Poncho Villa. Complete violations of another nation's autonomy. The US provides the equipment, the intelligence, often with advisors, and the diplomatic cover. When international outrage reaches critical mass, the US finally relents and expresses its concern that the offender show proper restraint. In Israel's case, the US withheld its admonitions like an old man who'd lost his hearing aid. Watch if the same is not happening with Turkey. Turkey's beef with Iraq has to do with the longstanding effort on the part of the Kurdish minorities in Iraq, Iran and Turkey to call for an independent Kurdistan. Turkey does not want to lose its mountainous regions to the Kurds, and has suppressed its own Kurds by even criminal means. Turkey resists admitting responsibility for the Armenia Genocide lest comparisons be drawn to how it has been resolving its Kurdish problem. Turkish General Haldun Solmazturk describes the latest Turkish incursion into Iraq on Voice of America as having dealt a blow to the PKK, the faction in the highlands of Iraq and Turkey which is fighting for Kurdish independence. "Fatal would be too much to describe the potential effect," he said. "But it would be a major blow. Because in any conflict you do not fight the people, you fight the minds and wills of the people. Such an operation will be a major blow on the will of the people."
Dead Chetnik discovered in US embassy
Angry Serbs stormed the American embassy in Belgrade to protest the US support of Kosovo independence. In the aftermath a charred body was found. Strange detail, don't you think? Standard news reports would say one killed, or that there had been one casualty. Instead the stories describe "a charred body was discovered in an unoccupied area" of one of the embassy buildings. State Department spokesmen made clear it wasn't a US national, nor an embassy employee, suggesting this was a protester. Or was it a secret detainee? Was this an interrogation water-boarding victim, left to dry, then to burn to a crisp? Was this a Janet Reno set fire? The trouble for George's crew was that the discovery was not in the part of the embassy breached by the rioters. Nor was it where the US diplomats have their offices. For what uses are the "unoccupied" buildings behind the embassy walls? Otherwise it's damned convenient to suggest the charred body could be one of the rioters. As a rebellious anti-American Serb, his/her profile would likely coincide with that of a person of interest US agents might have been holding for extraordinary rendition, or working over for intelligence. Why is the USA a backer of Kosovo independence? Kosovo has long been a province of Serbia, but suffered in WWII when the Germans massacred most of the families who lived there in retaliation for the deeds of the Chetnik partisans. As Albanian refugees moved into the empty houses, the population of Kosovo shifted until today the separatists outnumber the historic inhabitants. Otherwise, what cause has Kosovo to split from its countryside? America fought a civil war to keep its southern states from seceding from the union. Yet today we cheer when minority regions want to break from their national borders, when those borders are those of our enemy. The soviet member states from the former union for example, or Chechnya from Russia, or Kosovo from Serbia. When it involves our allies, we show less enthusiasm: Kurdistan, Timor, Taiwan.
Fecal material contacts rotary air circulation device…
This is like 20 minutes old, I would do a link but feel a certain urgency so here is the article verbatim, Yahoo! News Back to Story - Help Turkey bombards northern Iraq, Iraq says By QASSIM ABDUL-ZAHRA, Associated Press Writer 12 minutes ago The Iraqi government said Turkish artillery and warplanes bombarded areas of northern Iraq on Wednesday and called on Turkey to stop military operations and resolve the conflict diplomatically. The claim occurred amid rising tension and Turkish threats to strike bases of the Kurdistan Workers Party or PKK, which has been launching attacks against targets in Turkey from sanctuaries in Iraq. Government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh told The Associated Press that the morning bombardment struck areas of the northern province of Dahuk, some 260 miles northwest of Baghdad. Col. Hussein Kamal said about 250 shells were fired into Iraq from Turkey. He added that there were no casualties on the Iraqi side of the border. "We have received reports that the Turkish government and the Turkish army have bombed border villages. The Iraqi government regrets the Turkish military operations of artillery and warplanes bombing against border cities and towns," al-Dabbagh said. "The Iraqi government calls for ceasing these operations and resorting to dialogue," he said, insisting that Iraq wants "good relations with Turkey." Earlier Wednesday, Kurdish guerrillas staged a bomb attack against a military vehicle, killing two soldiers and wounding six others near the Iraqi border, the state-run Anatolia news agency said. The attack occurred close to the Iraqi border, near the town of Cukurca in Hakkari province, Anatolia said. Military helicopters flew the injured to hospitals as military units in the region launched an operation to hunt down the attackers, it said. Last week, Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari said Turkey had massed 140,000 soldiers along the border — a figure the U.S. disputed. Zebari said troop levels in the region were often increased during the spring and summer in response to increased activity by PKK. U.S. officials cast doubt on the figure. Turkish officials have repeatedly said they are considering military operations against the PKK in Iraq, a move that the United States fears would cause further instability. Al-Dabbagh said the Iraqi government is ready either for bilateral talks or three-way talks that will include the United States. He added that the PKK matter is not new but years-old. "We have said before that we will not allow Iraq to become a launching pad for operations against Turkey or any other country," al-Dabbagh said. Washington says it is working with Turkey to combat the PKK but that it is focused on combatting insurgents opposing U.S. forces. The PKK has escalated attacks this year, killing about 70 soldiers so far. More than 110 rebels were killed in the same period. Turkey has been battling the PKK since 1984 in a conflict that has killed tens of thousands of people.
Algeria, Eritrea, Kurdistan, Lebanon, Chad, Yemen- all pulled into made by US war
It is no longer even just Iran, Somalia, and Syria that are now being pulled into the vortex of the US government's mad assault on the Muslim world. The above countries, too, are all being made part of the US grab for declining oil reserves. All are to have their security sacrificed, and all in the name of making the US supposedly more secure!. This should give some people, who believe that it is total madness for the US to attack Iran therefore it can't be in the planning, some food for thought? Regionalized warfare is in the planning and is being carried out though, whether we like it or not. It is no longer a matter of when it might occur, simply because it already is occurring. Algeria is now sinking back into its decades long dirty war between its military and Islamic Rightist forces, as Turkey 's millitary is with its newest attacks on its oppressed Kurdish citizens. Hezbollah, in Lebanon, announces that Dick Cheney has begun a covert war against them inside that country, while Chad has now become drawn into conflict with Sudan. And in the Horn of Africa, the US is torturingand murering people alongside allies Uganda, Kenya, and Ethiopia, as Eritrea is being accused newly of supporting 'terrorism' because it opposes the US made invasion of Somalia with Ethiopian troops! Even in Thailand, the former government's persecution of its Muslim community has now rebounded into that country presently being ruled most unstably by a group of coup leaders. The real threat ahead as the US government moves its troops into line for an assault on Iran, is that the countries of Bangladesh, Pakistan, India, and Egypt will also have their stability crumble, not to mention other places like Saudi Arabia and Morocco, Nigeria, and the Congo, once again. Meanwhile, our politicians of both parties act as if all this is not all their doing! It is, and just like they don't give a damn about the destruction they are causing abroad, they don't give a damn about what they aere doing to the common American, neither.
Algonquin, Iroquois, Hmong, Montagnard, Pashtun, Kosovars, Bosnian Muslims, Kurds, Timorese
What a tragic list. The list is actually much, much larger than the one I put here as the title of this thread, but the unifying theme is a simple one. It is a list of smaller national groupings that have cooperated in some way with major imperialist powers, usually with tragic results to themselves. It is a list of smaller cultural, racial, national groupings that have gotten historically used and buffeted by much larger powers, that themselves were acting in their own perceived interests within much larger world conflicts. An interesting and poorly taught history, is the history of the conflicts between the Algonquin vs the Iroquois, French vs the British, then enter the Americans, too with their own internal conflicts. Much easier to teach are the fables of Pocahontas and that of 'Thanksgiving'. How much brutal warfare for the Algonquin and the Iroquois as they tried to side with one group of Europeans against the other. Their efforts to survive were only minimally successful. Then are the stories of the Hmong and Montagnards, who cooperated in one degree or another with the French and the US in their imperial efforts to dominate SE Asia. They did so in rebellion against their own domination within their regional societies by the more numerous Vietnamese, Lao, and Khmer peoples. But as a result, they became soon 'strangers in their own land', so to speak. Many ended up in far away exiles in the US and elsewhere. And look what has befallen the Pashtun, used by the US and the US allied Arab dictatorships to battle against the exSoviet Union which backed different Norht Afghan groupings of other national backgrounds. Much more complicated than just blaming it on the Taliban or 'Muslim extremism', as the idiot US Right Wing does so. The Kosovars remain with 60% unemployment years after Clinton/ Gore's war. What have they gotten by cooperating with US imperial interests against their neighbors, the Serbs? Little, it seems. Would 'independence' bring any better? It is doubtful, since Serbia is unlikely to easily forget such an evil alliance between Albanian and American. And the Bosnian Muslim? He faces a backing that now is in a religious war against the very same religion backed just yesterday. The Kurds? They had certainly legitimate reason to rebel against Saddam Hussein and the his Arab Sunni grouping. But now they are linked irremediably to the CIA and Pentagon, even as those same sinister forces back Kurd oppression next door in Turkey. Iraqi Kurdistan is now the better off section of Iraq, yet what a dangerous situation for the Kurdish people long term. And the Timorese? Half of Timor remains part of Indonesia, and the other half is now an impotent pseudo state, dependent on the UN, Australia, and the US for its
Affluenza
Are you worried that your children might be suffering from Affluenza, a degenerative virus pervasive among the world's affluent cultures? Many of America's youth can easily grow up insulated from an understanding of the human condition. Here are some recommended films for introducing affluent children to the larger world. All these films are kid friendly. They are about children and are not too traumatic. The only mature subject presented is the world view. While you endure your daily travails in the security of American suburbia, ninety percent of families on earth live in houses with a single room and no furniture. Meals are prepared and served on the floor, and the floor is of dirt. Here are three films which can provide a gentle visual introduction to the reality of impoverished humanity: Baraka, Powaqqatsi: Life in Transformation and Koyaanisqatsi: Life Out of Balance. Each of these feature photographic images set to music, from Philip Glass to classical. Latcho Drom is another film without dialog. It depicts the traditional Gypsy migration from India to Spain, told entirely in musical performances. For examples of children showing determination under adversity, with subtitles, Children of Heaven tells of a brother and sister in Iran who must share a pair of shoes. Another warm depiction of everyday muslim life is The White Balloon. A child's upbringing in India is portrayed in Satyajit Ray's 1954 masterpiece Pather Panchali. For children who are ready for a little more adversity there's A Time For Drunken Horses about boys hired to smuggle goods into Iraqi Kurdistan. For a light hearted glimpse of the challenges faced by Romany beggars there is The Time of the Gypsies and Mondo. And now for something completely different, in English, here's a humorous look at the life of the Bushmen of the Kalihari, The Gods Must Be Crazy. Another incredible tale, set on the coast of Ireland, The Secret of Roan Inish offers an appreciation of the mystical possibilities of life. To see this collection for growing minds at TOONS.