Iraqi Kurds Expand Autonomy as ISIS Reorders the Landscape

[Sally]

Isn't there any land in the area of Iraq, Turkey and Iran to give the millions of Kurds their own state?

Iraqi Kurds Expand Autonomy as ISIS Reorders the Landscape
By HELENE COOPER and MICHAEL R. GORDONAUG. 29, 2014

WASHINGTON — The Islamic State in Iraq and Syria has thrown Iraq into crisis, precipitated the ouster of Nuri Kamal al-Maliki as prime minister and brought the American military back to the country it left more than two years ago.

But now Obama administration officials are quietly acknowledging another important consequence: a far more autonomous Kurdistan.

The United States still officially opposes Kurdish independence, a decades-old policy that seeks to avoid further inflaming the region and provoking Turkey, Iraq and Iran, three countries with large and restive Kurdish minorities.

But the ISIS invasion has fundamentally changed the political geography of Iraq, senior American and Kurdish officials said, physically cutting off most of Iraqi Kurdistan from the rest of Shiite-dominated Iraq and encouraging the Iraqi Kurds in their drive for expanded autonomy.

Continue reading at:

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/30/w...-autonomy-as-isis-reorders-the-landscape.html?

 

[LiberalMedia]

Bumping so this can be seen by all the bigoted conservatards who said I was wrong about ISIS being President Obama's plan for an independent Kurdistan.

I suppose that we should start from the most basic aspect to this story, however, which is why there is a need for an independent Kurdistan in the first place.

I'll let you go first, OP, since it's your thread.

 

[Sally]

Bumping so this can be seen by all the bigoted conservatards who said I was wrong about ISIS being President Obama's plan for an independent Kurdistan.

I suppose that we should start from the most basic aspect to this story, however, which is why there is a need for an independent Kurdistan in the first place.

I'll let you go first, OP, since it's your thread.

My pleasure. The Kurds have been around for a long, long time and they number in the millions so by now they should have their own state. Why do you have a problem with that? On these forums, you see people whining about the so-called Palestinians having their own state when many of them or their ancestors came from different parts of the Middle East, such as Egypt and Syria. However, the amount of Kurds are certainly enormously higher than they are, and you never see all this clamoring for the Kurds to finally have a state of their own. It's like people close their eyes to the existence of the Kurds.

 

[LiberalMedia]

Bumping so this can be seen by all the bigoted conservatards who said I was wrong about ISIS being President Obama's plan for an independent Kurdistan.

I suppose that we should start from the most basic aspect to this story, however, which is why there is a need for an independent Kurdistan in the first place.

I'll let you go first, OP, since it's your thread.

My pleasure. The Kurds have been around for a long, long time and they number in the millions so by now they should have their own state. Why do you have a problem with that? On these forums, you see people whining about the so-called Palestinians having their own state when many of them or their ancestors came from different parts of the Middle East, such as Egypt and Syria. However, the amount of Kurds are certainly enormously higher than they are, and you never see all this clamoring for the Kurds to finally have a state of their own. It's like people close their eyes to the existence of the Kurds.

I disagree profusely with your reasoning. If being around "for a long, long time" and having a population numbering "in the millions" are the only two prerequisites for having one's own sovereign country, that automatically justifies the bigotry of white nationalists who want to throw immigrants out of Britain, France, Greece, the U.S., and every other white-majority country and/or who want to create a "homeland for the white 'race'". This, as you noted, is the same argument being used by Islamofascists seeking to establish an independent Palestinian state. Thus, such reasoning is unacceptable because it promotes racism and antisemitism.

I believe the reason that Kurds are entitled to their own independent state lies in actions taken by evil dictator extraordinaire Saddam Hussein. Hussein massacred his own pyyple, gassing Kurds by the tens of thousands--just as Hitler gassed Jews in his method of exterminating them. Because so many Kurds were 1) slaughtered in cold blood, 2) in their own country, and 3) by an evil dictator not of their own group, they are entitled to an independent state so long as they ally themselves with other similarly created states for oppressed minorities. In essence, because Israel is the only other such country, the continued existence of an independent Kurdistan will depend entirely upon how friendly they are to Israel and to Jews.

 

[Sally]

Bumping so this can be seen by all the bigoted conservatards who said I was wrong about ISIS being President Obama's plan for an independent Kurdistan.

I suppose that we should start from the most basic aspect to this story, however, which is why there is a need for an independent Kurdistan in the first place.

I'll let you go first, OP, since it's your thread.

My pleasure. The Kurds have been around for a long, long time and they number in the millions so by now they should have their own state. Why do you have a problem with that? On these forums, you see people whining about the so-called Palestinians having their own state when many of them or their ancestors came from different parts of the Middle East, such as Egypt and Syria. However, the amount of Kurds are certainly enormously higher than they are, and you never see all this clamoring for the Kurds to finally have a state of their own. It's like people close their eyes to the existence of the Kurds.

I disagree profusely with your reasoning. If being around "for a long, long time" and having a population numbering "in the millions" are the only two prerequisites for having one's own sovereign country, that automatically justifies the bigotry of white nationalists who want to throw immigrants out of Britain, France, Greece, the U.S., and every other white-majority country and/or who want to create a "homeland for the white 'race'". This, as you noted, is the same argument being used by Islamofascists seeking to establish an independent Palestinian state. Thus, such reasoning is unacceptable because it promotes racism and antisemitism.

I believe the reason that Kurds are entitled to their own independent state lies in actions taken by evil dictator extraordinaire Saddam Hussein. Hussein massacred his own pyyple, gassing Kurds by the tens of thousands--just as Hitler gassed Jews in his method of exterminating them. Because so many Kurds were 1) slaughtered in cold blood, 2) in their own country, and 3) by an evil dictator not of their own group, they are entitled to an independent state so long as they ally themselves with other similarly created states for oppressed minorities. In essence, because Israel is the only other such country, the continued existence of an independent Kurdistan will depend entirely upon how friendly they are to Israel and to Jews.

I don't know who you talk to, but the people I know are not talking about having America just for the "white race." To me the Kurds are ancient people who have been around a very long time and number in the millions, and for that reason I feel they deserve their own state by now. I agree with what you said about Saddam, and there are probably thousands of bodies of Kurds which are still buried someplace.