Tweet
The Australian (Australia)
December 29, 2007 Saturday
1 - All-round Country Edition
Let's not acquiesce in undermining Iraqi Kurds
CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS
IN the past century, the principal victims of genocide or attempted
genocide have been, or at least have prominently included, the
Armenians, the Jews and the Kurds. During most of last October,
events and politicians conspired to set these three peoples at one
another's throats.
What is there to be learned from this fiasco for humanity?
To recapitulate, at the very suggestion that the US House of
Representatives might finally pass a long-proposed resolution
recognising the 1915 massacres in Armenia as a planned act of ``race
murder'' (that was US ambassador Henry Morgenthau's term for it at a
time when the word genocide had not yet been coined), the Turkish
authorities redoubled their threat to invade the autonomous
Kurdish-run provinces of northern Iraq. And many American Jews found
themselves divided between their sympathy for the oppressed and the
slaughtered and their commitment to the state interest of Israel,
which maintains a strategic partnership with Turkey, and in
particular with Turkey's highly politicised armed forces.
To illuminate this depressing picture, one might begin by offering a
few distinctions. In 1991, in northern Iraq, where you could still
see and smell the gassed and poisoned towns and villages of
Kurdistan, I heard Jalal Talabani of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan
say that Kurds ought to apologise to the Armenians for the role they
had played as enforcers for the Ottomans during the time of the
genocide. Talabani, who has often repeated that statement, is now
President of Iraq.
(I would regard his unforced statement as evidence in itself, by the
way, in that proud peoples do not generally offer to apologise for
revolting crimes that they did not, in fact, commit.) So, of course,
it was on him, both as an Iraqi and as a Kurd, that Turkish guns and
missiles were trained in October.
And here, a further distinction: many of us who are ardent supporters
of Kurdish rights and aspirations have the gravest reservations about
the so-called Kurdistan Workers Party, or PKK. This is a Stalinist
cult organisation, roughly akin to a Middle Eastern Shining Path
group. (Its story, and the story of its bizarre leader Abdullah
Ocalan, are well told in Aliza Marcus's new book Blood and Belief:
The PKK and the Kurdish Fight for Independence.) The attempt of this
thuggish faction to exploit the new zone of freedom in Iraqi
Kurdistan is highly irresponsible and plays directly into the hands
of those forces in the Turkish military who want to resurrect
Kemalist chauvinism as a weapon against Prime Minister Recep Tayyip
Erdogan's Government, which it sees as soft on Kurdish demands.
There's a paradox here, in that the uniformed satraps who claim to
defend Turkish secularism are often more reactionary than the
recently re-elected and broadly Islamist Justice and Development
Party. The generals vetoed a meeting earlier this year between
Abdullah Gul -- now President of Turkey and then foreign minister --
and the Kurdish regional government in Iraq. This alone shows that
they are using the border question and the PKK as a wedge issue for
domestic politics.
This is enough complexity to be going on with, but the US Congress
and the executive branch have been handling it with appalling
amateurishness. The Armenian resolution (that has been put off until
at least 2008 in the US house under pressure from Turkey and the Bush
administration) is an old story. I can remember when it was sponsored
by then senator Robert Dole and stonewalled by then president Bill
Clinton. What a shame we didn't get it firmly on the record decades
ago.
But now a house and a White House that can barely bring themselves to
utter the word Kurdish are both acting as if nothing mattered except
Turkish amour-propre. And, as a consequence, the US and its friends
are being squeezed by Ankara instead of, to put it shortly, the other
way around. This is disgracefully undignified.
In 2003, the Turkish authorities, who had been parasitic on US and
NATO support for several decades, refused to allow US bases in Turkey
to be employed for a northern front in the removal of Saddam Hussein
unless their forces were allowed to follow into Iraqi Kurdistan. The
Bush administration quite rightly refused this bargain.
The damage done by Turkey's subsequent fit of pique was enormous:
nobody ever mentions it, but if the coalition had come at Baghdad
from two directions, a number of Sunni areas would have got the point
(of irreversible regime change) a lot sooner than they did. The rogue
PKK presence was not then a hot issue; Turkey simply wished to
pre-empt the emergence of any form of Iraqi Kurdish self-government
that could be an incitement or encouragement to the huge Kurdish
minority in Turkey.
So, let us be clear on a few things. The European Union, to which
Turkey has applied for membership with US support, has insisted on
recognition of Kurdish language rights and political rights within
Turkey. The US can hardly ask for less.
If the Turks wish to continue lying officially about what happened to
the Armenians, then the US cannot be expected to oblige them by doing
the same (and should certainly resent and repudiate any threats
against itself or its allies that would ensue from the US Congress
affirming the truth).
Then there remains the question of Cyprus, where Turkey maintains an
occupation force that has repeatedly been condemned by a thesaurus of
UN resolutions since 1974. It is not US conduct that should be
modified by Turkey's arrogance; the US does a favour to the
democratisation and modernisation of that country by insisting that
it get its troops out of Cyprus, pull its forces back from the border
with Iraq, face the historic truth about Armenia, and in other ways
cease to act as if the Ottoman system were still in operation.
* IN Slate recently, I mentioned that security for (author, former
Dutch MP and critic of Islam's treatment of women) Ayaan Hirsi Ali
might have to be paid for partly by private subscription.
On the web link below are the details for all who may wish to
contribute to this eminently deserving cause. This appeal is a test
of our seriousness in the face of theocracy and its assassins.
December 29, 2007 Saturday
1 - All-round Country Edition
Let's not acquiesce in undermining Iraqi Kurds
CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS
IN the past century, the principal victims of genocide or attempted
genocide have been, or at least have prominently included, the
Armenians, the Jews and the Kurds. During most of last October,
events and politicians conspired to set these three peoples at one
another's throats.
What is there to be learned from this fiasco for humanity?
To recapitulate, at the very suggestion that the US House of
Representatives might finally pass a long-proposed resolution
recognising the 1915 massacres in Armenia as a planned act of ``race
murder'' (that was US ambassador Henry Morgenthau's term for it at a
time when the word genocide had not yet been coined), the Turkish
authorities redoubled their threat to invade the autonomous
Kurdish-run provinces of northern Iraq. And many American Jews found
themselves divided between their sympathy for the oppressed and the
slaughtered and their commitment to the state interest of Israel,
which maintains a strategic partnership with Turkey, and in
particular with Turkey's highly politicised armed forces.
To illuminate this depressing picture, one might begin by offering a
few distinctions. In 1991, in northern Iraq, where you could still
see and smell the gassed and poisoned towns and villages of
Kurdistan, I heard Jalal Talabani of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan
say that Kurds ought to apologise to the Armenians for the role they
had played as enforcers for the Ottomans during the time of the
genocide. Talabani, who has often repeated that statement, is now
President of Iraq.
(I would regard his unforced statement as evidence in itself, by the
way, in that proud peoples do not generally offer to apologise for
revolting crimes that they did not, in fact, commit.) So, of course,
it was on him, both as an Iraqi and as a Kurd, that Turkish guns and
missiles were trained in October.
And here, a further distinction: many of us who are ardent supporters
of Kurdish rights and aspirations have the gravest reservations about
the so-called Kurdistan Workers Party, or PKK. This is a Stalinist
cult organisation, roughly akin to a Middle Eastern Shining Path
group. (Its story, and the story of its bizarre leader Abdullah
Ocalan, are well told in Aliza Marcus's new book Blood and Belief:
The PKK and the Kurdish Fight for Independence.) The attempt of this
thuggish faction to exploit the new zone of freedom in Iraqi
Kurdistan is highly irresponsible and plays directly into the hands
of those forces in the Turkish military who want to resurrect
Kemalist chauvinism as a weapon against Prime Minister Recep Tayyip
Erdogan's Government, which it sees as soft on Kurdish demands.
There's a paradox here, in that the uniformed satraps who claim to
defend Turkish secularism are often more reactionary than the
recently re-elected and broadly Islamist Justice and Development
Party. The generals vetoed a meeting earlier this year between
Abdullah Gul -- now President of Turkey and then foreign minister --
and the Kurdish regional government in Iraq. This alone shows that
they are using the border question and the PKK as a wedge issue for
domestic politics.
This is enough complexity to be going on with, but the US Congress
and the executive branch have been handling it with appalling
amateurishness. The Armenian resolution (that has been put off until
at least 2008 in the US house under pressure from Turkey and the Bush
administration) is an old story. I can remember when it was sponsored
by then senator Robert Dole and stonewalled by then president Bill
Clinton. What a shame we didn't get it firmly on the record decades
ago.
But now a house and a White House that can barely bring themselves to
utter the word Kurdish are both acting as if nothing mattered except
Turkish amour-propre. And, as a consequence, the US and its friends
are being squeezed by Ankara instead of, to put it shortly, the other
way around. This is disgracefully undignified.
In 2003, the Turkish authorities, who had been parasitic on US and
NATO support for several decades, refused to allow US bases in Turkey
to be employed for a northern front in the removal of Saddam Hussein
unless their forces were allowed to follow into Iraqi Kurdistan. The
Bush administration quite rightly refused this bargain.
The damage done by Turkey's subsequent fit of pique was enormous:
nobody ever mentions it, but if the coalition had come at Baghdad
from two directions, a number of Sunni areas would have got the point
(of irreversible regime change) a lot sooner than they did. The rogue
PKK presence was not then a hot issue; Turkey simply wished to
pre-empt the emergence of any form of Iraqi Kurdish self-government
that could be an incitement or encouragement to the huge Kurdish
minority in Turkey.
So, let us be clear on a few things. The European Union, to which
Turkey has applied for membership with US support, has insisted on
recognition of Kurdish language rights and political rights within
Turkey. The US can hardly ask for less.
If the Turks wish to continue lying officially about what happened to
the Armenians, then the US cannot be expected to oblige them by doing
the same (and should certainly resent and repudiate any threats
against itself or its allies that would ensue from the US Congress
affirming the truth).
Then there remains the question of Cyprus, where Turkey maintains an
occupation force that has repeatedly been condemned by a thesaurus of
UN resolutions since 1974. It is not US conduct that should be
modified by Turkey's arrogance; the US does a favour to the
democratisation and modernisation of that country by insisting that
it get its troops out of Cyprus, pull its forces back from the border
with Iraq, face the historic truth about Armenia, and in other ways
cease to act as if the Ottoman system were still in operation.
* IN Slate recently, I mentioned that security for (author, former
Dutch MP and critic of Islam's treatment of women) Ayaan Hirsi Ali
might have to be paid for partly by private subscription.
On the web link below are the details for all who may wish to
contribute to this eminently deserving cause. This appeal is a test
of our seriousness in the face of theocracy and its assassins.