Borderline Obsessiveness
(via LGF)
No, not me and my odd roleplaying fetish (the dice-rolling kind, drag those minds out of the gutter this instant!). I'm talking about the West's actual obsession with borderlines themselves, those odd things drawn on a map in some African or Middle Eastern country which for some daft reason we Westerners seem to regard as being binding for all eternity.
As no one seemingly took offence at my joke about Mrs Dubya and the Iraqi Kurds, here's an article explaining in detail how the Iraqis did, as the punchline says, get fucked by the White House. Its a subject that I personally feel very strongly about - that the many battles and many lives lost by the Kurds to help liberate Iraq from Saddam have been ignored, marginalised and all but forgotten, just as for a long time the blood shed and battles fought by Afghanistan's Northern Alliance and a certain very special Special Forces soldier were conveniently forgotten until recently when the Afghans elected a very different new President from the previous ex-Taliban supporting incumbent.
Why are we so obsessed with forcing so many different tribal and/or racial groupings together just because of an arbitrary pre- or post-war line drawn on a map by a western politician or three? Is it just another extension of the multicultural poison which is drowning us here at home, this insane idea that all creeds and ideologies no matter how (*hawk, spit) diverse are able to live together as one if we just wish for it hard enough?
Or is it as Sir Humphrey Appleby said, that all Colonial Governments deliberately created politically tense situations in the Colonies they left behind, just to ensure that they would end up so busy hating each other that they would never actually get around to attacking their former masters?
The truth is somewhere between the two, I suspect. What is certain is that if the Kurds do attempt a complete secession from Iraq, Kirkuk may well be the flashpoint from which a fresh conflict erupts. This Blogger hasnt forgotten the way the despicable (and as someone who lived next door to an Armenian refugee old enough to remember fleeing the 20th Century's first example of 'ethnic cleansing' I feel justified in using the word) Turks massed tanks and troops on the border and threatened to invade if the Kurds were given a homeland of their own - what will the US do if the situation repeats itself? Cave in again, or stand and fight this supposedly 'moderate' Islamic nation alongside its former allies should it come down to that?
I hope its the latter, but gloomily suspect it will be the former. For all their aspirations, I am very much afraid the Kurds of Iraq will continue to be casualties of realpolitik for some considerable time to come.
No, not me and my odd roleplaying fetish (the dice-rolling kind, drag those minds out of the gutter this instant!). I'm talking about the West's actual obsession with borderlines themselves, those odd things drawn on a map in some African or Middle Eastern country which for some daft reason we Westerners seem to regard as being binding for all eternity.
As no one seemingly took offence at my joke about Mrs Dubya and the Iraqi Kurds, here's an article explaining in detail how the Iraqis did, as the punchline says, get fucked by the White House. Its a subject that I personally feel very strongly about - that the many battles and many lives lost by the Kurds to help liberate Iraq from Saddam have been ignored, marginalised and all but forgotten, just as for a long time the blood shed and battles fought by Afghanistan's Northern Alliance and a certain very special Special Forces soldier were conveniently forgotten until recently when the Afghans elected a very different new President from the previous ex-Taliban supporting incumbent.
Why are we so obsessed with forcing so many different tribal and/or racial groupings together just because of an arbitrary pre- or post-war line drawn on a map by a western politician or three? Is it just another extension of the multicultural poison which is drowning us here at home, this insane idea that all creeds and ideologies no matter how (*hawk, spit) diverse are able to live together as one if we just wish for it hard enough?
Or is it as Sir Humphrey Appleby said, that all Colonial Governments deliberately created politically tense situations in the Colonies they left behind, just to ensure that they would end up so busy hating each other that they would never actually get around to attacking their former masters?
The truth is somewhere between the two, I suspect. What is certain is that if the Kurds do attempt a complete secession from Iraq, Kirkuk may well be the flashpoint from which a fresh conflict erupts. This Blogger hasnt forgotten the way the despicable (and as someone who lived next door to an Armenian refugee old enough to remember fleeing the 20th Century's first example of 'ethnic cleansing' I feel justified in using the word) Turks massed tanks and troops on the border and threatened to invade if the Kurds were given a homeland of their own - what will the US do if the situation repeats itself? Cave in again, or stand and fight this supposedly 'moderate' Islamic nation alongside its former allies should it come down to that?
I hope its the latter, but gloomily suspect it will be the former. For all their aspirations, I am very much afraid the Kurds of Iraq will continue to be casualties of realpolitik for some considerable time to come.
posted by Dangerouslysubversivedad at 5:43 PM
1 Comments:
We should stand by the kurds, as a rule. Though i think we need to get our own house in order first. We arnt a colonial power anymore, infact we arnt any kind of power, and we need to remember that.
The Americans? they said they would suppport a rising before didnt they and look what happened to them then. That was disgusting. I dont suppose they will do any better this time. We shall see.
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