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A rchive Date
[ 22-02-2004 ]
Category
[ International Relations ]
sub-Categoy
[ Kurdistan ]

http://slate.msn.com/id/2095840/

Kurd Sellout Watch: Day 355

Give up the peshmerga? You have to be kidding

.

By Timothy Noah
Posted Friday, Feb. 20, 2004, at 2:49 PM PT

Imagine you're a

. Your army, the

, gave coalition troops their only indigenous military support in last year's overthrow of

's government.

against your people - about which the United States

raised little fuss

when they occurred two decades ago - provided President

with the major human - rights justification for intervention.

Dozens of your fellow Kurds, including many important political leaders, were killed earlier this month in two suicide bombings in Irbil, in the

deadliest attack inside Iraq since August

.

You suspect the Americans and the British will eventually make you give up the city of Kirkuk, or at least the revenues from its oil, because otherwise the post-Saddam Iraqi state will collapse into civil war. You're quietly resigned about giving up some of the freedoms you enjoyed during Saddam's rule - when Iraqi

was protected by the "

" created by the United States, the United Kingdom, and France - in order to help sustain the new Iraqi regime you helped create.

Imagine all that, and then imagine that

, administrator of the

Coalition Provisional Authority

, tells you to disband the

peshmerga

. And that, if possible, to please do so by the end of this month. Here's how he put it in a

Feb. 19 press conference

:

We have made clear in discussions with the Kurdish leaders and other political leaders that we believe there's no place in an independent, stable Iraq for armed forces that are not under the control of the command structure of the central government.

What do you tell him? You tell him to

.

Kurd Sellout Watch Archive:

Jan. 6, 2004:

Nov. 8, 2003:

Oct. 24, 2003:

Oct. 20, 2003:

Oct. 7, 2003:

July 27, 2003:

July 23, 2003:

May 16, 2003:

May 1, 2003:

April 25, 2003:

April 23, 2003:

April 18, 2003:

April 10, 2003:

April 3, 2003:

March 26, 2003:

March 25, 2003:

March 23, 2003:

March 21, 2003:

March 20, 2003:

March 17, 2003:

March 14, 2003:

March 11, 2003:

March 6, 2003:

March 4, 2003:

March 3, 2003: "

How Screwed Are the Kurds?

Timothy Noah writes "Chatterbox" for

Slate

E - mail Timothy Noah at

chatterbox@slate.com

World Fact Book

)

]

Cross-Indexed:

Are Kurdish Soldiers "Facing Death" or "Seeking Death"?

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