Did ya know this?

[LynnTheDem]

The Kurds in Iraq have 2 main political parties; the PUK and the KDP.

-Did ya know these 2 factions had been in civil war against each other for almost 30 years prior to bush's invasion?

-Did ya know more Iraqi Kurds have killed Iraqi Kurds than the number of Kurds killed by Turkey, Iran, and Hussein combined?

-Did ya know the leader of the PUK is Talabani, current "president" of Iraq?

-Did ya know the Kurds have a human rights record as bad as Saddam's Iraq?

-Did ya know the Kurds slaughtered Iraqis all over the place during the 1991 insurgency?

-Did ya know Talabani was an ally of Hussein's, and (shades of Rumsfeld), publicly hugged Hussein & kissed him on the cheek in 1994?

-Did ya know the other main political party leader, Barzani of the KDP, was an ally of Saddam's, and in 1998 asked Hussein to help the KDP fight the PUK? Hussein agreed; Talabani called Barazani a "traitor" for going to Hussein for help.

Just some thoughts for those who think the Kurds are innocent little lambs. And I suppose I should go dig up all my links to these facts....although I'll still be called names, regardless. :D

[ET Awful]

1. I've also read in several places that . . .

During the time period when Saddam is alleged to have gassed the Kurds, there were Iranian troops in the immediate vicinity. Some versions have it that Saddam was gassing Iranian troops, yet more have it that the type of gas that was used was never in Saddams arsenal, but was in Irans arsenal at the time.

If I recall, initial reports from US intelligence at the time blamed the attack on Iranian forces, NOT Iraqi.

[LynnTheDem]

5. Ok that's a different thing you're asking about; I do have the US gov/Mil

reports handy about the gassings.

What happened: the town of Halabjah was controlled by the Iraqis until the Kurds took control; the Iranians, who were aligned with the Kurds, didn't know the Kurds had taken control of the town.

The Iraqis did use (and admit to using) mustard gas against the Iranian troops, and (as the US gov & US military reports say) the Iranians used blood agent gas.

The Kurd civilians were cught in the middle (we call that "collateral damage".)

At the same time, Iraq's Kurds were also fighting amongst themselves, and did so for 30 years, with a huge death toll. That and Turks were killing Kurds and vice versa.

Anyways here are the "gassings" reports. I'll look out the Kurds vs Kurds reports shortly (damn I was hoping no one would ask, it's such "hard werk" digging thru my huge file! LOL!)

*******

The US State Department found both sides were using chemical weapons.

"There are indications that Iran may also have used chemical artillery shells in this fighting," spokesman Charles Redman told the press a week after the attack. "We call on Iran and Iraq to desist immediately from the use of any chemical weapons."

On May 3, 1990, referring to yet another study, "A Defense Department reconstruction of the final stages of the Iran-Iraq war has assembled what analysts say is conclusive intelligence that one of the worst civilian massacres of the war, in the Iraqi Kurdish city of Halabja, was caused by "repeated chemical bombardments from both belligerent armies." "
Washington Post (May 3, 1990)
http://www.villagevoice.com/news/0218,trilling,34389,1.html

The US government itself later confirmed the fact that both sides had used gas and that, in all likelihood, Iranian gas killed the Kurds.

A Pentagon report, ‘Iraqi Power and U.S. Security in the Middle East’ published in 1990 states (Chapter 5): “In March 1988, the Kurds at Halabjah were bombarded with chemical weapons, producing a great many deaths. Photographs of the Kurdish victims were widely disseminated in the international media. Iraq was blamed for the Halabjah attack, even though it was subsequently brought out that Iran too had used chemicals in this operation, and it seemed likely that it was the Iranian bombardment that had actually killed the Kurds.”
-United Nations: No Proof Saddam Gassed the Kurds
http://www.polyconomics.com/searchbase/11-18-98.html

The Pentagon's USAWC and US Marine Corps report concluded Iran gassed the Kurds at Halbjah, not Iraq.

Lessons Learned: The Iran-Iraq War
by Dr. Stephen Pelletiere and Lieutenant Colonel Douglas Johnson
U.S. Army War College Strategic Studies Institute

"The great majority of the victims seen by reporters and other
observers who attended the scene were blue in their extremities. That means that they were killed by a blood agent, probably either cyanogen chloride or hydrogen cyanide. Iraq never used and lacked any capacity to produce these chemicals. But the Iranians did deploy them. Therefore the Iranians killed the Kurds."

US Marine Corps document FMFRP 3

"Blood agents were allegedly responsible for the most infamous use of chemicals in the war—the killing of Kurds at Halabjah. Since the Iraqis have no history of using these two agents—and the Iranians do—we conclude that the Iranians perpetrated this attack."
http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/ops/war/docs/3203/

The DIA's report concluded Iran had gassed the Kurds & Iranians of Halabjah;

Immediately after the battle the United States Defense Intelligence Agency investigated and produced a classified report, which it circulated within the intelligence community on a need-to-know basis. That study asserted that it was Iranian gas that killed the Kurds, not Iraqi gas.

The agency did find that each side used gas against the other in the battle around Halabja. The condition of the dead Kurds' bodies, however, indicated they had been killed with a blood agent - that is, a cyanide-based gas -which Iran was known to use. The Iraqis, who are thought to have used mustard gas in the battle, are not known to have possessed blood agents at the time.

http://truthout.org/docs_02/020303C.htm

The CIA's report mentions "hundreds" killed, not "5000" and against the Iranians primarily w Kurds caught in the cross-fire. This report is still on the US government CIA website.

http://www.cia.gov/cia/reports/iraq_wmd/Iraq_Oct_2002.htm

Halabaja, the town where it took place, was at the time occupied by invading Iranian forces, and, according to MSNBC Internet Home News, hundreds of Iranians and civilians were killed, not thousands.

Some other links:

IRAQ'S CHEMICAL WARFARE
In our book Iraqi Power and U.S. Security in the Middle East we questioned whether Iraq had used chemicals against its Kurdish population, as widely believed.

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/3441

Q & A WITH CIA ANALYST STEPHEN PELLETIERE (Part 2)
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article2098.htm

Lawyer: Saddam not involved in gassing of Kurds
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=JPost/JPArticle/ShowFull&cid=1105845488605

[eridani]

2. The links would be really, really cool

I am an Archive Bitch, and would treasure them forever, or at least until my hard drive crashes.

[LynnTheDem]

10. Ok here ya go, from one AB to another AB; LINKS

I'll do anything for a fellow Archive Bitch! :D

Iraq's New President Jalal Talabani: Ally of CIA, Iranian Intelligence and Saddam Hussein

http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=05/04/07/1343226

Kurdistan Observer; Sense of Frustration

For decades main Kurdish military-political groups, under the misleading title of parties, waged a self-destructing war against each other. It is not an exaggeration to state that this long fratricide cost the Kurds more lives than the murderous actions of Saddam, Turkey and Iran combined.

http://home.cogeco.ca/~kurdistan3/2-6-04-opinion-zorab-sense-of-frustration.html

SHHH! Don't tell the war supporters that! ;)

Saddam helps the Kurds fight the Kurds

By 1996, Barzani was receiving help from Baghdad in battling the PUK, prompting Talabani to brand Barzani a traitor for enlisting Hussein’s help.

http://www.isn.ch/news/dossier/middle_east/news.cfm?detailID=11063&showtype=2

Kurd & current Iraqi President Talabani; hugs and kisses for Hussein

It was just after the Kurds had risen against Saddam Hussein in the wake of his Kuwait adventure.

The Baghdad forces struck back. Almost the entire Kurdish population fled into the mountains and the peshmerga stayed behind to hold off the Iraqi army.

One night, Mr Talabani vanished and nobody would tell me where he'd gone. Then he suddenly appeared on Iraqi TV, kissing Saddam Hussein on the cheeks.

Far from feeling betrayed, his fighters danced and sang. They thought this must mean the war was over. It wasn't.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/from_our_own_correspondent/4506507.stm

http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=05/04/07/134...

The Fratricide War; more Kurds killed Kurds than anyone else did

In 1994, war broke out between the two leading factions of the Kurdish people, Al-Barazani's KDP and Al-Talabani's PUK, which resulted in the deaths of thousands of Kurdish fighters on both sides. The Clinton administration's intervention led to an agreement signed in Washington in 1998 that called for a cease-fire and for the division of the Kurdish territory into two sections, one led by an Al-Barazani government headquartered in Irbil and the second led by an Al-Talabani government headquartered in Sulaimaniya.

http://www.memri.de/uebersetzungen_analysen/laender/persischer_golf/irak_memri8_12_09_03.html

Kurdish Timeline of Kurds versus Kurds:

1970 A peace agreement is signed between the Iraqi government and the Kurds of northern Iraq, granting them some self-rule.

1975 Jalal Talabani, leader of the Kurdish Democratic Party (KDP), leaves to found the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK). The two groups begin decades of conflict.

1992 A large-scale Turkish military operation attacks PKK bases in Iraq, where Kurdish safe havens had been allowed to develop by international forces after the Persian Gulf War.

-(Just thought I'd point out who else was killing Kurds back then)

1994 The two main political groups of the Iraqi Kurds, the Kurdish Democratic Party (KDP), led by Masoud Barzani (his father and grandfather were legendary Kurdish freedom fighters), and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), headed by Jalal Talabani, begin fighting each other for control of the Kurdish autonomous region. (Talabani has now won. For now.)

1995 In a military operation similar to the one in 1992, about 35,000 Turkish troops invade PKK bases in Iraq.

-{When do we invade and occupy Turkey?)

1998 The PUK's Talabani and the KDP's Barzani sign a peace agreement, ending the four-year war between rival Iraqi Kurd factions.

2002 The Iraqi Kurdish regional parliament meets for the first time in six years, indicating a real sign of unity between Iraqi Kurdish factions since the 1994–1998 war.

http://www.infoplease.com/spot/kurds3.html

The Talabani-Barzani or PUK-KDP rivalry has been a dominant factor in Iraqi Kurdish politics for the last three decades.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/2480197.stm

And peace between the Kurds reigns...until after bush's elekshuns in 2005...

KDP and PUK supporters clash following Talabani’s election 16.4.2005http://www.ekurd.net/mismas/articles/misc2005/4/independentstate148.htm

Human Rights Reports; Kurdistan

...fighting among rival Kurdish political parties continued throughout the year, with clashes between the KDP and the PUK causing significant displacement of civilians. Both parties have been implicated in a wide array of abuses, including arbitrary arrest of suspected political opponents; torture and ill-treatment of detainees; evictions of supporters of rival parties, and extrajudicial executions of dissident political activists.

Fighting among Kurdish parties and between Turkish and Kurdish forces aggravated an already serious problem of internally displaced people. The U.N. Center for Human Settlement estimated that "more than one third of the population. . . are internally displaced persons," of whom over 500,000 are in need of assistance. Many have been expelled from their homes in northern Iraq because of presumed support for rival Kurdish parties, while others fled north after Iraq expelled them from their homes in the Kirkuk and Khanaqin areas.

http://www.hrw.org/worldreport/Mideast-05.htm

In Iraqi Kurdistan armed Kurdish political parties and Iraqi security forces were also responsible for a wide variety of human rights violations, including the arbitrary detention of suspected political opponents, torture, and extrajudicial executions.

http://www.hrw.org/worldreport99/mideast/iraq.html

The two Kurdish political parties controlling Iraqi Kurdistan detained prisoners of conscience, and armed political groups were reportedly responsible for abductions and killings.

http://web.amnesty.org/web/ar2002.nsf/mde/iraq?Open

Kurds: 1991 slaughtering of Iraqis:

http://www.hrw.org/reports/1992/WR92/MEW1-02.htm

Yep. Just innocent lambs. Ain't it amazing all the shades of gray the "black or white" thinkers miss out on.

[Kurovski]

17. And what a great Archive Bitch you are LynnTheDem!

I didn't know all these things you've posted. Thanks, You're one of the best.

and now this bastard has some archiving to do...

[LynnTheDem]

21. Hello Archive Bastard!

LOL!

Thanks for your kind words! :)

[eridani]

19. Bookmarked! Thanks ever so much! n/t

[eridani]

20. And one more thing--put it in the Demopedia!

[LynnTheDem]

31. You're welcome!

And what's a demopedia? :D

Actually I know what it is...I know where it is...but you're asking a total puter-dummy to WHAT???

:D

[eridani]

32. Um. I'll admit I don't know if it is ready to go

Skinner--whassup with it? Is this info appropriate?

[Michael_Bush]

3. PUK is a hardline terrorist group

And had been listed for years as one of the very worst out there. Lucky for us they mainly killed Turks.

The Kurds have been a thorn in everyones side for decades. The CIA had pistols made up to look like Turkish production and provided them to the Kurds in the '60s to kill the Russians. I am sure the Russians were arming somebody to kill us too.

The Iranians fought with the Kurds because they had a common enemy but the Iranians have no love for the Kurds either. The Turks of course despise them, remember all the politics surrounding our aborted drive South from Turkey?

This whole region has always been one of shifting alliances and betrayals. Colonial powers playing games and often being outwitted in the long run by locals. An entertaining read on the subject is The Great Game by Peter Hopkirk.

[LynnTheDem]

7. And the leader of the PUK is now the president of Iraq.

Ain't that a kick in the head.

[Michael_Bush]

8. THAT is why we don't define terrorism

We wouldn't want what we do, or what those who support us do to be called terrorism.

That was why Putin was so eager to sign on to the WOT, it gave him a free hand to deal with Chechnia.

When you start hearing the Kurds and the Shia fighting, then it is all over for Iraq. The Kurds are busy building the South end of greater Kurdistan. When they see Iraq as a hopeless mess, they will start creating a border with the South and they and the Shia will be fighting each other.

What I wonder is what are the plans when THAT mess transpires. Are we going to stop the Turks from invading? Are we going to invite the Kurds to invade? Will we leave the middle and create a South Iraq and just keep the Shia?

All this for lack of a plan...

[annabanana]

4. I suspect we will hear more of this soon.

With Iran in the crosshairs and all...

[me b zola]

6. You won't be called any names by me

I was one who thought of the Kurds as "innocent". Prior to finding DU, I got my news from the CM and never researched anything on-line. Even through the lens of the CM it was easy to see that * is a nightmere, but until I came here and found independent news sources I never knew just how skewed a persons view of what reality is when getting all of the information to form opinions based on the CM.

Thanks for the post, my eyes opened that much wider :)

[hector459]

9. Yes, I knew it and tried to enlighten folks three years ago.

This would make a great handbill.

[LynnTheDem]

11. Bet you and I got called a lot of the same names 3 years ago, too.

:D

[NNN0LHI]

12. kick

[Hissyspit]

13. But, Lynn! Knowing that, you're expecting me to deal with nuance...

shades of grey, analysis, LOTS of facts...

It makes my brain hurt.

Blind demonization of one man is so much easier, and more fun, too.

Recommended and kicked.

[LynnTheDem]

22. LOL!!!

Don't make me come over there and smack you upside the head, Hissy!

:rofl:

[kimpossible]

14. Thank you for that!

I had no idea the Kurds had such skeletons in their little lamb closets.

[LynnTheDem]

23. Don't we all? Most Americans I suspect don't know the US was found guilty

in the terrorist deaths of 30,000 Nicaraguan civilians by the then World Court, promised to pay restitution, paid for a year, then made a deal with Nicaragua to do trade deals instead of payments, Nicaragua agreed...and the US then froze the trade deals which remain frozen to this day.

Oh yeah, lotsa skeletons, literal & figurative.

[Swamp Rat]

25. Sí, yo me recuerdo muy bien que hicimos allí en Nicaragua.

That's why I blew a fuse when I heard Poindexter was in charge at DARPA/TIA. This Bush admin is crawling with the most sinister villians since Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot (et al). Americans better wake the fuck up! x(

[LynnTheDem]

28. I hear ya, Swamp! You & me both. When I heard about that criminal

sick bastard...how many nations is he unable to travel to because he's a war criminal? I thought he couldn't even go to Canada?

Poindexter is one evil dirty MFer and that he's part of bush's Cartel says everything needed to know about bush.

[spindoctor]

15. I remember the PKK: Hard line terrorists

Plus mob-like operations throughout Europe. Extracting 'protection money' from Kurdish and Turkish immigrants.

But fair is fair, the Kurds are also victims. They are being systematically attacked in Turkey, Syria and Iraq (at least they were).

Whenever somebody paints you a simplistic picture of any Middle-Eastern situation, you can safely assume that its wrong.

[LynnTheDem]

24. The PKK is not the PUK, two different groups. The PKK being "terrorists"

depends on the US government's Mood of the Day. The PKK are the same bunch bush & Cartel want to use as US-sponsored "pot stirrers" to go into Iran and rabble-rouse, with the hopes of inciting Iranians into overthrowing the Mullahs.

The PKK are the same group bush & Cartel made a "cease fire" agreement with in 2003 right after bush's invasion, and allowed them to remain armed.

The PKK are the same group bush & Cartel are wanting to use to put down the Iraqi insurgents.

The PKK are the same group bush refuses to disarm, and Turkey of whom says they'll disarm the PKK themselves in that case.

In the past few years, Turkey has launched two major assaults on the PKK in Kurdistan; are the PKK not also victims?

And while the Kurds are victims of Turkey, Syria and Iraq, they were in fact also allies of Iraq at vaying times, and they are also perpetrators against each other.

30 years of civil war against each other, with more Kurds killed by Kurds than by Turkey, Iran & Hussein combined...and that's from the Kurds.

As you say, any simplistic picture -"good guys vs bad guys"- of the ME is wrong. And childish.


*A note of interest re the PKK; my husband spent several weeks with the PKK in the summer of 2003, as he was part of the military working out the "cease fire" agreement between the US invaders and the PKK. He said they were very intelligent, well-educated people, many were US or UK-educated, very friendly, and damn fine fighters. He also liked their waterpipe smoked after the main meals (not waacky baccy; just the regular kind, lol!)

[anarchy1999]

16. Dear Lynn, it does get tiresome, I know. Let everyone else go look it up

if they want or if you have a handy link then put it up. Otherwise, it's okay. We've all been thrashing through this now for how long? Let some others do some homework. It is a healthy thing to encourage. RESEARCH and LEARN!

You rock.

I agree 100% with what you say, no, the Kurds are not innocents, especially not now!

We need emoticons for "QUAGMIRE" & "SNAFU"!

Good wishes, peace and go sleep tight.

on edit: Please forgive, I did not read through the entire thread, you already put links for research. Nice job. I wish I was more organized and could join in your club.

[LynnTheDem]

27. Membership to the Archive Bitches & Bastards is FREE! Don't delay!

Join now! (Sorry, the telly's on in the background, some ad for something nobody needs, lol!)

I do wish people -not just Americans, although especially Americans- would stop with the good guy-bad guy crap and learn the FACTS and look at every side's perspective before launching WARS that PEOPLE DIE in.

We take more time researching facts before we buy our CARS than we do before we KILL people!

Just spending as much time on researching the facts of people as we do on cars would go one hell of a very long way towards achieving peace on this little planet.

[spindoctor]

18. Here is a good article. Looks like the PUK are the good guys.

It's all relative of course. The Kurdish situation is a complicated mess.

http://www.iraqwatch.org/perspectives/merip-pin44-012401.htm

Here is some info on PKK terrorism and their ties to Hezbollah, the Medelin Cartel, etc.

http://www.ataa.org/ataa/ref/pkk/mfa/report-pkk-terrorism.html

[Disturbed]

26. So which Kurds have been and still are..

helping the U.S. kill Sunni Insurgents?

Off topic: Syria is mostly Sunni. Iran is mainly Shi'ite. Syria and Iran have a mutual military aid pact.

[LynnTheDem]

29. Both, the peshmerga militia; the same militia who refused bush's demand

that they disarm & disband;

Kurd militia resists US call to disband

Today, about 60,000 peshmerga remain, funded by the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan and the Kurdistan Democratic Party.

http://old.krg.org/docs/articles/k-rider-kurds-resist-peshmerga-disband-mar04.asp

And a May 6, 2005 article;

More Carnage as Iraq's Ethnic Tensions Ignite

... on Wednesday saying it was revenge for the Kurdish peshmerga fighting alongside US troops.

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/story.jsp?story=635964

Edit: here's a non-sub link; http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/050605L.shtml

[Swamp Rat]

30. Bush and Halliburton have a pact too

It's to blow up those countries and steal all their oil.

[LynnTheDem]

33. And to charge the countries they blow up for blowing up their countries,

and then to charge the countries for shoddily rebuilding what bush & Halliburton blew up, and then to charge those countries for re-rebuilding what they shoddily rebuilt the first time after blowing up those countries.

One hell of a scam. Has to be one of the greatest cons of the century.

[frictionlessO]

34. Ahhh Lynn how do you find the time?! Maybe you should do a

refresher on all the lies of GW1 as well?? How Poppy let that happen, like Lil Boots Lihopped (maybe even mihopped) 9/11??

People need to be reminded every now and then...

Thanks for your tireless efforts!
:hug:

[LynnTheDem]

35. Hmmm I happen to have stuff on GW1's bushit in my file...somewhere...

:D

I'm gone until Monday (ya'll hold down the bushCartel 'til I get back, k? LOL!)

And then a round-up of bush's lying criminal family! I like it, I like it! :)

Thanks for your thanks, that's much appreciated!
:hug:

[frictionlessO]

37. Duhang!! Till Monday? Ah well, we'll be missing ya..

Tons o' fun to ya!

[ArkDem]

36. Your research always speaks for itself!