03-27-2005, 18:05
|
#1
|
|
Quiet Professional
Join Date: Jan 2004
Location: Red State
Posts: 3,774
|
The Kurds
Advertisement
By Jeffrey Fleishman | Los Angeles Times
Posted March 27, 2005
SULAYMANIYAH, Iraq -- Sahib Ali Abbas hopped on a bus and rode until the date palms turned scarce and the mountains rose, big and wrinkled and waiting for snow.
The Shiite Muslim carpenter and five friends left the bloodshed of central Iraq to head north toward Kurdistan. The language changed, and glances turned suspicious.
It was another country, but it wasn't. After police interrogated him and decided he wasn't a terrorist, a contractor handed him a tool belt and a sack of nails.
Like thousands of Arabs from troubled south and central Iraq, Abbas, who left Baqouba several months ago, has found a more prosperous life in the democratic, free-market Kurdish region.
Protected from Saddam Hussein's armies for 12 years by a "no-fly" zone patrolled by U.S. and British planes, the Kurds effectively raised a nation within a nation. Their clattering cities represent what many want for the rest of Iraq.
"There's a big difference between the south and here," Abbas said, stepping over metal rods and a pile of rocks on an apartment-building construction site. "The Kurds are rich and educated. We're tired of poverty in the south. I look around at all this construction and see many, many Arabs just like me."
Authorities say 2,000 to 6,000 Sunni and Shiite Muslim Arabs have migrated to the Sulaymaniyah region since the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq two years ago. They are laborers, doctors, waiters, professors. There is even a civil-aviation engineer hired from Baghdad because the Kurds wanted to build an airport but lacked experts.
Reliable statistics are scarce but estimates suggest that the number of Arab migrants is steadily rising and may total more than 20,000 across northern Iraq, which has 3.5 million to 4 million Kurds. Recent Kurdish history is a lesson in reversal of fortune.
Regimes based in Baghdad brutalized the north for generations. Sunni Arabs were taught that Kurds were beneath them; the Kurds' political voice was muted, and hundreds of thousands of them were killed. Then the no-fly zone, established after the 1991 Persian Gulf War, transformed the region.
Kurdish mountain guerrillas traded their baggy pants and bandoleers for the suits of politicians and businessmen, negotiating multimillion-dollar deals in Iran, Turkey and the United Arab Emirates.
Over time, the Kurds fashioned a sprawling mountain bazaar. They couldn't get McDonald's, so they created MaDonal. They had cell phones before Baghdad. Internet cafes became hangouts for the young, and satellite TV dishes shone from the poorest villages.
Not all is laissez faire -- the main Kurdish political parties control much development. Patronage and corruption fuel many endeavors, and poverty in rural areas is high.
Kurds comprise about 18 percent of the country's population. Boosted by a high turnout, a unified Kurdish party may have won 30 percent of the vote in last month's national election, which would give the north a large role in the new government.
"The Kurds are prosperous," said Naif Sabhan Khalaf, a Sunni Arab councilman in the oil city of Kirkuk. "They have smart political leaders who have taken advantage of things. Other provinces should follow this example.
"Western businesses tell me they are going to the north because there's security there, unlike places such as Tikrit, which are still ablaze."
Not everyone in Iraq is quick to praise the Kurds, who are Sunnis but not Arabs.
Iraq has been a nation of resentment and suspicion for decades. One ethnic or religious group's good tidings have meant another's suffering. As Sunni Arabs' hold loosened since the fall of Saddam, Shiites and Kurds have emerged as the prominent forces. Iraqi Arabs often wince when they credit the Kurds and often describe the north's achievements as a conspiracy by Washington, D.C., to control Iraq.
Kurds were America's ally in the war to topple Saddam, and many Arabs believe they betrayed the country's sovereignty.
"The Kurds depend on the Americans," said Mikdad Mustaf Ahmet, a writer in Kirkuk, a contested, multiethnic city south of Sulaymaniyah whose new government the Kurds are expected to control.
"America is using the Kurds to change the political show," Ahmet said. "There are secret deals. The Kurds want to take Kirkuk for the petrol. They want to draw Kirkuk into their autonomous region."
The main street in Sulaymaniyah is a grid of Kurdish aspirations. Lots are cleared, holes are dug, cement mixers churn, wood beams are hewn and hammered, and skeletons of half-finished cinder-block buildings rise in perpetual dust.
Twenty construction sites dot the street, and building projects for the district government alone are expected to cost $741 million. The commercial and service industries have grown by 200 percent in recent years, according to the Kurdistan Finance Ministry.
"People from Ramadi and Fallujah want to copy what we have, which is good because when they come here they help our economy," said Othman Ismail Shwani, deputy finance minister of the Kurdistan Regional Government. "For 45 years, the Kurdish struggle was an armed struggle. Things have changed, and now the best way to prosper is through diplomacy and a strong economy."
Shaaban Nooradin draws a paycheck amid the construction clatter on the main street. Standing in muddy boots and watching girls pass in winter dresses, the 19-year-old Sunni Arab moved here from Kirkuk and was hired by a Turkish company building a government office. When he could find work at home, he painted cars for $136 a month. He earns nearly $400 a month in Sulaymaniyah.
"The pay here is good and fair," he said. "A lot of young Arabs like me, even married guys, are coming north to work. They treat us good. On New Year's Eve, though, they forced the Arabs to go home because they thought terrorists might be planning something here. They let us back in later."
Ali Ibrahim Bayaty is a hematologist from Mosul. When he received his doctor's license last year, the Iraqi Health Ministry assigned him to a hospital in Tikrit.
"I wasn't going to work in the city of the despot Hussein," said Bayaty, a Sunni Arab, standing in the afternoon sun in a clinic here. "I came to a safe place. The Kurds needed my expertise, and I needed security. It was a nice union. I hope the situation in the north prevails over all of Iraq so I can return home, get married and complete my life."
Clothes ripped, his thin beard dusty, the carpenter Abbas climbs down from the second floor of a new apartment building. He walks past exposed metal rods and rows of concrete blocks. He has a wife in Baqouba. They are too poor, he says, to have children. He'll see her in a few days, when the bus takes him out of the mountains to where the land flattens and the heat rises.
"Everything is messed up in the south," he said. "The only thing I know about the future is that the number of Iraqis killed will go up. I'm lonely and tired, and if it wasn't for this work, I couldn't do it."
__________________
Don't mess with old farts...age and treachery will always overcome youth and skill! Bullshit and brilliance only come with age and experience.
|
|
BMT (RIP) is offline
|
|
|
03-27-2005, 18:19
|
#2
|
|
Quiet Professional
Join Date: Jan 2004
Location: LA
Posts: 1,653
|
Bush the First should have helped them...
__________________
Somewhere a True Believer is training to kill you. He is training with minimal food or water, in austere conditions, training day and night. The only thing clean on him is his weapon and he made his web gear. He doesn't worry about what workout to do - his ruck weighs what it weighs, his runs end when the enemy stops chasing him. This True Believer is not concerned about 'how hard it is;' he knows either he wins or dies. He doesn't go home at 17:00, he is home.
He knows only The Cause.
Still want to quit?
|
|
NousDefionsDoc is offline
|
|
|
03-27-2005, 18:21
|
#3
|
|
Asset
Join Date: Mar 2005
Location: Illinois
Posts: 27
|
I bet you won't see that on the evening news. Part of Iraq that has prospered on the account of American intervention. Good find!
__________________
I'm not very good at coming up with signature lines.
|
|
mfos2 is offline
|
|
|
03-27-2005, 18:36
|
#4
|
|
Quiet Professional
Join Date: Jan 2004
Location: Free Pineland
Posts: 24,810
|
Quote:
|
Originally Posted by NousDefionsDoc
Bush the First should have helped them...
|
Exactly.
The majority of our losses today go back to that failure by him, and that of the military leadership in CENTCOM who let Saddam fly his aircraft to strike against the Kurds and Shii'a.
TR
__________________
"It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat." - President Theodore Roosevelt, 1910
De Oppresso Liber 01/20/2025
|
|
The Reaper is offline
|
|
|
03-27-2005, 18:43
|
#5
|
|
Quiet Professional
Join Date: Jan 2004
Location: Red State
Posts: 3,774
|
The Kurds
The Turks rasied so much hell about the Kurds the first time the idea was dropped. Turks are probably sweating bullets now that the Kurds are getting on their feet.
BMT
__________________
Don't mess with old farts...age and treachery will always overcome youth and skill! Bullshit and brilliance only come with age and experience.
|
|
BMT (RIP) is offline
|
|
|
03-27-2005, 18:59
|
#6
|
|
Quiet Professional
Join Date: Jan 2004
Location: Free Pineland
Posts: 24,810
|
Quote:
|
Originally Posted by BMT
The Turks rasied so much hell about the Kurds the first time the idea was dropped. Turks are probably sweating bullets now that the Kurds are getting on their feet.
BMT
|
That, and the fact that their refusal to let the 4th ID in kept us from the Northern Offensive rolling up the Ba'athists and throwing them back to Baghdad.
Could have been a part of the problems we have been facing, but hard to say due to the number of compounding errors.
TR
__________________
"It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat." - President Theodore Roosevelt, 1910
De Oppresso Liber 01/20/2025
|
|
The Reaper is offline
|
|
|
03-27-2005, 19:40
|
#7
|
|
Quiet Professional
Join Date: Mar 2004
Location: Castle Rock, CO
Posts: 2,531
|
Quote:
|
Originally Posted by The Reaper
Exactly.
The majority of our losses today go back to that failure by him, and that of the military leadership in CENTCOM who let Saddam fly his aircraft to strike against the Kurds and Shii'a.
|
we had everything in place except for the political will...it was very doable...i spent weeks in the SSD working on the PSYOP programs, products, etc...but we had to get permission from the UN for the no-fly zones...and inaction paralysis took over...i was pulled off of working on those projects to go to Somalia...from a winnable situation to something worse... 
__________________
""A man must know his destiny. if he does not recognize it, then he is lost. By this I mean, once, twice, or at the very most, three times, fate will reach out and tap a man on the shoulder. if he has the imagination, he will turn around and fate will point out to him what fork in the road he should take, if he has the guts, he will take it.""- GEN George S. Patton
|
|
lksteve is offline
|
|
|
03-27-2005, 21:05
|
#8
|
|
Quiet Professional
Join Date: Jan 2004
Location: LA
Posts: 1,653
|
I didn't think the UN ever sanctioned the No Flys. I thought that was a US-Brit decision. I could be wrong.
__________________
Somewhere a True Believer is training to kill you. He is training with minimal food or water, in austere conditions, training day and night. The only thing clean on him is his weapon and he made his web gear. He doesn't worry about what workout to do - his ruck weighs what it weighs, his runs end when the enemy stops chasing him. This True Believer is not concerned about 'how hard it is;' he knows either he wins or dies. He doesn't go home at 17:00, he is home.
He knows only The Cause.
Still want to quit?
|
|
NousDefionsDoc is offline
|
|
|
03-28-2005, 09:38
|
#9
|
|
Quiet Professional
Join Date: Mar 2004
Location: Castle Rock, CO
Posts: 2,531
|
Quote:
|
Originally Posted by NousDefionsDoc
I didn't think the UN ever sanctioned the No Flys. I thought that was a US-Brit decision. I could be wrong.
|
nope...on the leaflets we dropped when we imposed the no-flys, we reference UN Security Council Resolutions for the North and South...my memory fails me on which ones they were...
__________________
""A man must know his destiny. if he does not recognize it, then he is lost. By this I mean, once, twice, or at the very most, three times, fate will reach out and tap a man on the shoulder. if he has the imagination, he will turn around and fate will point out to him what fork in the road he should take, if he has the guts, he will take it.""- GEN George S. Patton
|
|
lksteve is offline
|
|
|
03-28-2005, 10:30
|
#10
|
|
Quiet Professional
Join Date: Jan 2004
Location: Free Pineland
Posts: 24,810
|
Quote:
|
Originally Posted by NousDefionsDoc
I didn't think the UN ever sanctioned the No Flys. I thought that was a US-Brit decision. I could be wrong.
|
That is correct.
TR
__________________
"It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat." - President Theodore Roosevelt, 1910
De Oppresso Liber 01/20/2025
|
|
The Reaper is offline
|
|
|
03-28-2005, 10:31
|
#11
|
|
SF Candidate
Join Date: Feb 2005
Posts: 38
|
lksteve,
NDD is correct about the no fly zones. While the US cites the UN Resolution 688 as its basis, there is no legal mandate for the enforcement of the no fly zone. The no fly zone was originally enforced by US UK and the Communist Republic of France as Operation Provide Comfort. 688 is a humanitarian resolution and while our no fly zone certainly contributed to humanitarian efforts in the area, it was hotly contested and claimed illegal by our illustrious European counterparts. France pulled out in 96 and the name was changed to Northern Watch. As with anything in the UN (or International Law in General for that matter) its all semantics.
|
|
boat guy is offline
|
|
|
03-28-2005, 11:19
|
#12
|
|
Area Commander
Join Date: Jan 2004
Location: MD
Posts: 1,012
|
Quote:
|
Originally Posted by boat guy
lksteve,
NDD is correct about the no fly zones. While the US cites the UN Resolution 688 as its basis, there is no legal mandate for the enforcement of the no fly zone. The no fly zone was originally enforced by US UK and the Communist Republic of France as Operation Provide Comfort. 688 is a humanitarian resolution and while our no fly zone certainly contributed to humanitarian efforts in the area, it was hotly contested and claimed illegal by our illustrious European counterparts. France pulled out in 96 and the name was changed to Northern Watch. As with anything in the UN (or International Law in General for that matter) its all semantics.
|
Northern Watch out of Incirlik, Turkey, and Southern Watch out of Prince Sultan Air Base, Saudi Arabia. Semantics and the host country made a huge difference in how the guys could respond to being shot at...
|
|
lrd is offline
|
|
|
03-28-2005, 13:02
|
#13
|
|
Quiet Professional
Join Date: Jan 2004
Location: LA
Posts: 1,653
|
Not that i have a problem with bi-lateal US-Brit actions. 
__________________
Somewhere a True Believer is training to kill you. He is training with minimal food or water, in austere conditions, training day and night. The only thing clean on him is his weapon and he made his web gear. He doesn't worry about what workout to do - his ruck weighs what it weighs, his runs end when the enemy stops chasing him. This True Believer is not concerned about 'how hard it is;' he knows either he wins or dies. He doesn't go home at 17:00, he is home.
He knows only The Cause.
Still want to quit?
|
|
NousDefionsDoc is offline
|
|
|
03-28-2005, 13:17
|
#14
|
|
Quiet Professional
Join Date: Mar 2004
Location: Castle Rock, CO
Posts: 2,531
|
Quote:
|
Originally Posted by boat guy
lksteve,
NDD is correct about the no fly zones. While the US cites the UN Resolution 688 as its basis, there is no legal mandate for the enforcement of the no fly zone.
|
in so much as i was the Pol-Mil officer working on several issues regarding the imposition of both no-fly zones, i'll stand by my remark...granted, the force behind the no-fly zones was initially tri-lateral...but those UN Resolutions were as important to proceeding with the no-fly zones and earlier resolutions were to liberating Kuwait during DS....
operations out of Turkey had to be spontaneous, in other words, the enforcing aircraft, and only aircraft immediately available, could respond to an incident...in the Southern Watch AO, we had a set of contingency plans to cover a large range of potential incidents...any pre-planning that allegedly happened in response to incidents in the PC area were allegedly pre-planned by the J3 Long Range Plans guys at JTF HQ in Riyadh...
as one who allegedly wrote plans...
__________________
""A man must know his destiny. if he does not recognize it, then he is lost. By this I mean, once, twice, or at the very most, three times, fate will reach out and tap a man on the shoulder. if he has the imagination, he will turn around and fate will point out to him what fork in the road he should take, if he has the guts, he will take it.""- GEN George S. Patton
|
|
lksteve is offline
|
|
|
Currently Active Users Viewing This Thread: 1 (0 members and 1 guests)
|
|
|
Posting Rules
|
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts
HTML code is Off
|
|
|
All times are GMT -6. The time now is 12:44.
|
|
|
Linear Mode
