In Iraq, Shias turning against Kurds

[Barrett808]

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Omar Nayef swears that the Iraqi soldiers who stopped him at a checkpoint outside the besieged city of Fallujah two weeks ago were Kurdish.

"They were wearing Kurdish hats and they were speaking Kurdish with each other," said Nayef, 34, who fled to stay with relatives in Baghdad. "I know the Kurds are fighting alongside the Americans in Fallujah, no matter how much they deny it."

Nayef, a Sunni Arab, was traveling with a cousin when they were stopped and interrogated. "They told us that we were terrorists, that everyone in Fallujah was a terrorist," he said, angrily fingering his prayer beads. "They said the Americans would take care of us."

All over Baghdad, stories like Nayef's are circulating about Kurdish militiamen, known as pesh merga, having fought with U.S. Marines who cordoned off the Sunni city of Fallujah for much of April. Military officials say the Kurds were deployed in the area as part of the new Iraqi army and not as members of the militias controlled by the two largest Kurdish political parties.

(more)

http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/world/ny-woshia283787499may05,0,1051014.story?coll=ny-worldnews-headlines

[aquart]

1. What does "pesh merga" mean?

Answering my own question:

<http://slate.msn.com/id/2080527/>

Students of Middle Eastern linguistics will note that peshmerga's constituent words are of Persian origin. This is no coincidence, as the word was added to the Kurdish lexicon during the brief heyday of the Mahabad Republic. The only fully independent Kurdish homeland in modern history, the republic was established in northwestern Iran in January 1946, with the tacit approval of the Soviet Union. According to Kurdish lore, the young nation's leaders met to codify the group's language, as a precursor to setting up educational institutions. The story goes that the amateur linguists couldn't come up with a suitable word for "soldier" and adjourned to a local cafe. When a waiter inquired as to why the table looked so glum, they described their vocabulary woes. The waiter then suggested peshmerga, a slang term from his nearby village.

"Pesh" is supposed to be "stand in front of" and "merga" is death. But the story is telling us that the Kurds took the word from a local village's slang. The thing about slang is that it can mean something other than the literal. And it can be salty as hell. And it can be remarkably old. They wanted a word for soldier. I think they got "dead fish." There's another possibility but I'm just too delicate to say: "dead dick."

[Barrett808]

2. That's the name of the Kurdish militias

Noun 1. peshmerga - a member of a Kurdish guerilla organization that fights for a free Kurdish state.

http://www.thefreedictionary.com/peshmerga

[David__77]

3. The Kurds are being so very foolish.

They actually think they will gain sovereignty? Stupid. The US will feed them to Turkey's fascist dogs. The US will never support a Kurdish homeland--this is all a tragic ruse. A once progressive fighting people is turning itself into mercenaries.