KURD is the word - and the word is KURD

by Terry 65 Replies latest jw friends

Terry

KURD is the word - the word is KURD
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Who the heck are they?
Once upon a time, World War One ended and three people created a new place out of thin air called: IRAQ.
(Gertrude Bell, Lawrence of Arabia, Winston Churchill).

This new country was divided up into 3 chunks:
KURD
SUNNI
SHIA
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Solemn promises made by Colonel T.E. Lawrence to Arab allies were broken by politicians (Sykes-Picot Treaty). Arab promises were valuable only until the War was won.

Whenever a war is Won or Lost, the victors divide the assets of the losers.
Victor allies tear at it with fang and claw until every mouth drips with spoils.

Promises, Treaties? Carrot and stick. Don’t count yer chickens, buddy.

FEW in the U.K. or America cared much about Kurds until 1918 when OIL was discovered with Kurds living on top of it!

Kurds were made promises of their own homeland. Again and again.
Carrot and stick. Quid pro Quo.

(**Spoiler alert**: Kurds have no homeland even today.)
Oh, and the American “Indian” lives on parcels of set-aside reservations, owed billions and getting only gambling casinos to run.
Keep that in mind. We "care" according to how useful any group proves to be.
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KURD is the word - the word is KURD
What the heck is a Kurd?
(one who lives in a tent) i.e. wanderer, nomad…
Sort of like the way we think of indigenous Native Americans on the Frontier.
(In fact, solemn government treaties with Native Americans parallel the Kurds.)
Just sayin...
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“Historically”, Noah’s Ark came to rest in the mountains where Kurds would end up dwelling in tents (i.e. being KURDS).
Ararat.
They have their own language (Kurdish : duh) spoken by about 5 million people.
(Indigenous Native Americans had their own ethnicity and languages as well.)
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HOW TO FACTOR the importance of KURDS
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1.5 Billion people are Muslim on planet earth.
About 35 million Kurds live on planet earth.
97% of Kurds are Muslim.
(NOTE: Islam is split into disagreeable sects: SUNNI = 90% and SHIA = 10%)
Kurds are 75% SUNNI. They are 100% hated by SHIA.

(Kurds make up about 10% of the population in Syria, 19% of the population of Turkey, 15-20% of the population of Iraq and are the second largest ethnicity in Iran.)
So what?
They are the LEAST powerful no matter where they exist.
They do not blend easily. Their chief predictable nature is: UPRISINGS!
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Dizzy yet?
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Throughout their long history, on many occasions, Kurds engaged in uprisings against local ruling authorities.
Why?
Why did Israel not “fit in” with their local no-Jewish authorities?
They think of themselves as “special.”
Kurds are like that: insular, demanding, unsettled, a sense of entitlement you could say arguably.
In the 1980’s IRAQ and IRAN fought a no-holds-barred war in which over one hundred thousand Kurds were killed.
Still, in 1991, more Kurd uprisings continued. (Nope, they never learn.)

The partial success of Kurd uprisings figured into President Bush’s wildly optimistic Plans to ~~Democratize the Middle East~~ by sending shock and awe forces into Iraq.
Note: Saddam Hussein was a secular tyrant with no interest in Muslim squabbles.
His overpowering domination, in fact, kept the constant squabbling and back-stabbing of Sunni vs Shiites cooled down.
Remove Saddam and you remove the ONLY stability the Middle East had going.
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Kurds welcomed American soldiers invasion forces.
Then...it all went to hell.
Saddam was secular. Americans, on the other hand, are INFIDELS!!
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Were you alive while this was all happening?
Did you pay any attention? Do you understand?
Kurds welcomed the INFIDELS.
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RELIGION (to the U.S. and Russia and Great Britain) is second to OIL in importance.

OIL is worth nothing if it cannot be exported and sold.
Competing pipelines for export need to go THROUGH Syria.

Russia is backing a pipeline waiting to go through Syria.

Arabs (willing to pay the U.S. to get Assad out of Syria) have a pipeline waiting for Syria.
C.I.A. pits one group against another group and backs ANY GROUP (even terrorist Wahhabi terrorists) arming them against Assad in Syria.
Remember Nine Eleven?
Why?
Oil can only be sold using DOLLARS (i.e. so-called “Petro-Dollars”.)
President Nixon removed our currency from gold standards.
It was replaced by OIL.
Russia has OIL. Arabia has OIL. Kurds have OIL.
The United States and Great Britain have oil interests being industrialized nations.
All OIL is sold and purchased with $$ Petro-dollars.
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So? Where is the conflict, you ask?
OIL is worth nothing if it cannot be exported and sold.
Competing pipelines for export need to go THROUGH Syria.
Powerful nations with powerful interests like to CONTROL every aspect of OIL.
(Kurds are not powerful and have no nation.They are useful for propaganda.)
On top of all this are Religious hatred and Political propaganda stirring the pot.
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Again and again the United States (through C.I.A. operatives) have manipulated the local conflicts between Middle Eastern governments, moving pieces around like a chessboard.
On any given week, enemies can suddenly become allies and the next week enemies again.
(Secret C.I.A. advisers with lots of gold and American technology (weapons) act as brokers.
The meddling of Great Britain, Russia, and the U.S. in politics (covertly) has enraged Muslims who are busy struggling with their own interests religiously.
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What citizens of those countries read and hear about Middle East machinations consists mostly of propaganda, and manipulation efforts. I.e. outright lies.

Remember, until OIL was discovered in the Middle East -- nobody gave a crap.
Now we “care” about the plight of Kurds. We are “shocked” about civilians dying on the ground.
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KURDS are our pawns.
They are precious one day and expendable the next.
We, the public, are triggered into caring by carefully scripted news bulletins of their plight.
QUESTION?
Do Americans “care” about the Kurds? Yes.
QUESTION?
Do they “care” about the Iraq Body Count of 183,348 - 205,908 violent civilian deaths through April 2019?
Um, uh ...not with as much demand as for more war in Syria.
KURD is the word and the word is: PROPAGANDA.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CIA_activities_in_Syria
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hhttps://bit.ly/2VW2CBJ
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https://www.lowyinstitute.org/the-interpreter/kurds-aren-t-always-good-guys
Finkelstein

So in your opinion Terry what is the real reason for Turkey invading the Kurdish held region, strategically connecting the dots to achieve a certain outcome ?
stan livedeath

i gave up early with all that. turks, kurds..turds is simpler.
blondie

Thanks, Terry. It is hard for many people in the US to keep on US history let alone history in the rest of the world.
Yes, when the European started divesting themselves of their foreign colonies (does Ireland count?), the Europeans decided where to draw the boundaries without any concern about the people who lived in those colonies, putting boundaries that separated one part of a tribe from the other part. Or melding 2 or more tribes that had been at war with each other for over a 100 years or more.
The Europeans decided the boundaries based on economic factors.
cofty

Kurds have OIL
Kurds have no oil Terry - they do not have a square yard of earth to call their own.
They have been instrumental in the fight against Islamist terror groups and the dismantling of the Caliphate. Now on a whim they are abandoned to the Turkish tyrant. At best ethnic cleansing will ensue - at worst genocide.
Of course there is a large element of self-interest in every political decision but do you not consider the possibility that world leaders really do care about the victims of tyranny?
The real problem with the Middle East is not meddling by oil-hungry democracies; it is the tribalism and corruption of almost every Middle East ruler in recent history. Maybe King Hussein of Jordan was a rare exception.
Terry
So in your opinion Terry what is the real reason for Turkey invading the Kurdish held region, strategically connecting the dots to achieve a certain outcome ?
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- Sectarian vs. secular government; not a civil war
  
  The conflict in Syria has never been civil war erupting from peaceful protest.
  (So-called Arab Spring)
  Syrian rebels and a great many foreigners want to overthrow the legitimate government (Syria’s secular, inclusive and tolerant society) to establish strict Islamic government and society.
  Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Turkey, and the U.S. have been backing those extremists to establish themselves in the Middle East and control its energy resources.
  
  In September, the U.S. and Russia formed an agreement with fighters calling themselves “moderate rebels” in Syria who volunteered to separate themselves from Al Qaeda (the organization formerly led by Osama bin Laden, said to have brought down the Twin Towers in New York).
  The U.S. and Russia would then cooperate with those (we play nice now) former Al Qaeda in order to jointly attack the Nusra Front and ISIS.
  
  These fairy-tale “moderate terrorists” lost no time RE-JOINING Al Qaeda.
  The group these moderates rejoined (Nour al-Din al-Zinki) posted a video of themselves beheading a 12-year old boy. (Good thing they’re only moderate.)
  
  Most Syrians have chosen to remain in Syria under the protection of their government and Army. Mindful as they are and fearful of such “moderate” groups aligned with the U.S.
  Journalists on the ground are eyewitness to the fact “Government [has] maintained control of the great majority of the populated areas and most of the displaced population sought refuge in those government controlled cities ...schools, health centres, sports facilities were functioning. While life was hardly normal, everyday life did carry on. People were surviving, and resisting. This reality was hardly visible in the western media, which has persistently spread lies about the character of the conflict.”
  
  “Fact check two: almost all the atrocities blamed on the Syrian Army have been committed by western-backed Islamists, as part of their strategy to attract more foreign military backing. Their claims are repeated by the western media, fed by partisan Islamist sources and amplified by embedded ‘watchdogs’, including Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch.”
  __reported by Tim Anderson (in The Dirty War on Syria__
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  From Robert F. Kennedy, Jr, ‘Why the Arabs don’t want us in Syria’
  March 1, 2016
  In part because my father was murdered by an Arab, I’ve made an effort to understand the impact of U.S. policy in the Mideast and particularly the factors that sometimes motivate bloodthirsty responses from the Islamic world against our country.
  … During the 1950s, President Eisenhower and the Dulles brothers — CIA Director Allen Dulles and Secretary of State John Foster Dulles — rebuffed Soviet treaty proposals to leave the Middle East a neutral zone in the Cold War and let Arabs rule Arabia. Instead, they mounted a clandestine war against Arab nationalism … particularly when Arab self-rule threatened oil concessions …
  The CIA began its active meddling in Syria in 1949 …Syrian patriots had declared war on the Nazis, expelled their Vichy French colonial rulers and crafted a fragile secularist democracy based on the American model. But in March 1949, Syria’s democratically elected president, Shukri-al-Quwatli, hesitated to approve the Trans-Arabian Pipeline, an American project … [I]n retaliation … the CIA engineered a coup replacing al-Quwatli with the CIA’s handpicked dictator, a convicted swindler named Husni al-Za'im …
  …The Syrian people again tried democracy in 1955, re-electing al-Quwatli and his National Party. Al-Quwatli was still a Cold War neutralist, but stung by American involvement in his ouster, he now leaned toward the Soviet camp. That posture caused CIA Director Dulles to send his two coup wizards, Kim Roosevelt and Rocky Stone, to Damascus …
  But … CIA money failed to corrupt the Syrian military officers. The soldiers reported the CIA’s bribery attempts to the Ba’athist regime. In response, the Syrian army invaded the American Embassy, taking Stone prisoner. After harsh interrogation, Stone made a televised confession of his roles in the Iranian coup and the CIA’s aborted attempt to overthrow Syria’s legitimate government. The Eisenhower White House hollowly dismissed Stone’s confession as “fabrications” and “slanders,” a denial swallowed whole by the American press, led by the New York Times and believed by the American people …
  Of course, the Russians, who sell 70 percent of their gas exports to Europe, viewed the Qatar/Turkey pipeline as an existential threat … In 2009, Assad announced that he would refuse to sign the agreement to allow the pipeline to run through Syria “to protect the interests of our Russian ally.”
  … Soon after [that] … the CIA began funding opposition groups in Syria. It is important to note that this was well before the Arab Spring-engendered uprising against Assad.
  Bashar Assad’s family is Alawite, a Muslim sect widely perceived as aligned with the Shiite camp. … Before the war started, according to [journalist Seymour] Hersh, Assad was moving to liberalize the country … Assad’s regime was deliberately secular and Syria was impressively diverse. The Syrian government and military, for example, were 80 percent Sunni. Assad maintained peace among his diverse peoples by a strong, disciplined army loyal to the Assad family, an allegiance secured by a nationally esteemed and highly paid officer corps, a coldly efficient intelligence apparatus and a penchant for brutality that, prior to the war, was rather moderate compared to those of other Mideast leaders, including our current allies. According to Hersh, “He certainly wasn’t beheading people every Wednesday like the Saudis do in Mecca.”
  … By the spring of 2011, there were small, peaceful demonstrations in Damascus against repression by Assad’s regime. … However, WikiLeaks cables indicate that the CIA was already on the ground in Syria …
  The idea of fomenting a Sunni-Shiite civil war to weaken the Syrian and Iranian regimes [and thus] to maintain control of the region’s petrochemical supplies was not a novel notion. … A damning 2008 Pentagon-funded Rand report … recommended using “covert action, information operations, unconventional warfare” to enforce a “divide and rule” strategy …
  … Two years before ISIL throat cutters stepped on the world stage, a seven-page August 12, 2012, study by the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency, obtained by the right-wing group Judicial Watch, warned that … “the Salafist, the Muslim Brotherhood and AQI ([Al-Qaeda Iraq,] now ISIS), are the major forces driving the insurgency in Syria.”
  Using U.S. and Gulf state funding, these groups had turned the peaceful protests against Bashar Assad toward “a clear sectarian (Shiite vs. Sunni) direction.” …
  Not coincidentally, the regions of Syria occupied by the Islamic State exactly encompass the proposed route of the Qatari pipeline. (Emphasis added.)
  … Beginning in 2011, our allies funded the invasion by AQI [Al-Qaeda in Iraq] fighters into Syria. In April 2013, having entered Syria, AQI changed its name to ISIL. According to Dexter Filkins of the New Yorker, “ISIS is run by a council of former Iraqi generals … Many are members of Saddam Hussein’s secular Ba’ath Party who converted to radical Islam in American prisons.” …
  But then, in 2014, our Sunni proxies horrified the American people by severing heads and driving a million refugees toward Europe …
cofty

The Syrian conflict did start as a popular uprising by oppressed Syrians weary of Assad's corrupt regime. It was part of the Arab Spring. The civil war resulted directly from Assad's brutal response.
Syria then became a magnet for multiple competing regional and international interests.
Your are in danger of becoming an apologist for one of (or it is two of) modern history's greatest tyrants.
dropoffyourkeylee

LOL I didn't know Darth Vader was a Kurd!
Diogenesister

The real problem with the Middle East is not meddling by oil-hungry democracies; it is the tribalism and corruption of almost every Middle East ruler in recent history. Maybe King Hussein of Jordan was a rare exception.
They are not ready for democracy. Tragically it seems only a powerful and corrupt dictator is able to control the internecine fighting in the Middle East.
Also I hear a lot of talk about the evil Islamist terrorists and yes, they are.
But when did the terror against the west start?
oh yes, when the US invaded Iraq.
The beginnings of isis was when Russia invaded Afghanistan. The US backed the people who have evolved into isis.
Big business controls politics so however the politicians feel on a personal level about civilian suffering, the dollar will always win out.
And yes, since the bullshit we were fed over the Falklands war by the BBC, I will NEVER trust the propaganda the media pumps out.
Personally, I am deeply sorry about the Kurds and they very much need and deserve their own country. I believe they are the biggest ethnic group not to have their own land (but I may be wrong). I realise my own country played a large part in their current suffering by drawing up the boundaries as they did.
Being poor is lousy. It’s a hell of a life, when you’re poor. No one gives a crap.
cofty

So in your opinion Terry what is the real reason for Turkey invading the Kurdish held region - Fink
Because of the activities of a Kurdish separatist organisation called the PKK who have carried on an armed conflict - terrorist campaign- within Turkey.
Now with the withdrawal of American protection Erdogan will eradicate ALL Kurds from Turkey. He will not hesitate to distinguish between terrorists and innocent women and children.

KURD is the word - and the word is KURD

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